Short Review: One of the best westerns made.


Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton, Michael Biehn, Powers Boothe, Charlton Heston, Stephen Lang, Thomas Haden Church, Dana Delany, Michael Rooker and Billy Bob Thornton - All of them and you toss in Robert Mitchum doing the narration for good measure? This is how you cast your Western.


This is a film that others in Hollywood movies should emulate. Directors George P. Cosmatos and Kurt Russell explore the familiar tale of the shoot-out at the OK Corral . Following his famed stewardship of Dodge City, Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell), retires to Tombstone, Arizona where he hopes to live a quiet existence with his brothers and their friend Doc Holiday (Val Kilmer).

Earp's idyllic dreams are ruined by the Cowboys, a band of outlaws, who threaten the small town. The Earp Brothers, along with Holiday, face down the brutal outlaws. The conflict leads to the final shoot-out that made all of the men legends.

While the cast is impressive, it is Val Kilmer who makes the movie. His turn as Doc Holiday is one of the great performances in the genre and one of the best film performances of the 1990's. His sly, fatalistic Holiday is reason enough to see the film.

Doc Holiday is presented as an ominous gunslinger who has the capacity to bring quick death to anyone. His ever present danger is undercut by terminal illness. He is racked with tuberculosis and is physically fading. The duality of a dying man who is forced to summon the skills of his healthier days is fascinating to watch.

Kevin Jarre’s script is perfectly paced and full of so many brilliant lines I can’t decide where to begin my praise. The dialog in this script puts most screenwriters to shame. Characters should always have heightened speech. The best way to elevate your characters is through the words that flow from their lips. Jarre offers his characters great lines that perfectly match their personalities. Not once does the elevated language feel imposed. Another example of this use of grand language is Pirates of The Caribbean series (written by Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio.)

Jarre’s wise use of language meshed with Kurt Russell’s confident performance give credence to the fear that Wyatt Earp puts into those around him even though he doesn’t use his gun until the midpoint of the film.




Children, that is how you write dialog.

This is how you make a movie.


Cautions: Obviously, since this deals with the shoot-out at the OK Corral, there is violence. In comparison to what you see on TV these days, the violence is not out of hand.


Worldview: Men are fallen and their hunger knows no bounds. This hunger for power, sex, wealth drive many to commit atrocities. These horrors can happen on large and small scales. The immediate threat the Cowboys pose to the peace of Tombstone is an interesting moral problem that replicates the one found in war zones. When is it acceptable for a man to pull the trigger? To kill another man?

The sixth commandment states "You shalt not murder". Murdering is different than killing. Murder assumes no moral right is promoted by the act. Murder is wasteful and hateful. One is permitted to kill as the need arises however. But where does that moment come?


Self-defense is one of the central human rights. The ability to be free is centered on this concept. Wyatt Earp tries to shirk the concerns over the Cowboys, up to the point where violence is visited upon his family.

Wyatt refuses the role of Sheriff only to have his brother Morgan take up the position. Morgan is the calm soul, the thoughtful brother who says at one point "God made all this and He remembered to make a little speck like me." He is not the one to confront the evil of the world alone. That is Wyatt's calling. Wyatt's hesitation to stand up to evil costs both him and Morgan dearly.

I find questions about where these important lines are drawn to be fascinating. I also find that they cause a boatload of arguments as well. I would say that it proves the potency of this film that a simple Western can prompt such thoughts in the first place.



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Labels: Bill Paxton, Billy Bob Thornton, Charlton Heston, film, Kurt Russell, Michael Biehn, movie review, Powers Boothe, Sam Elliott, Stephen Lang, Thomas Haden Church, Val Kilmer, western

What the heck is with the soundtrack on this one? What is that Earth Music (or whatever it is) playing over an ad for a Western? Why not just play a polka?

Fantastic film but this trailer does a terrible job selling it. The film's best features, the dialog and Val Kilmer and Kurt Russell performances aren't really displayed well. What we do get is a spoiler on Morgan Earp's fate and a series of dizzying snippets.

Labels: Bill Paxton, Charlton Heston, film, Kurt Russell, movie trailer, Sam Elliott, Val Kilmer

This is far from perfect and numerous fatal flaws that make wide swatches of this film excruciating to watch. One of the key battles in Naval history is reduced to stumbling scenes weighed down with two-dimensional dialog and clumsily edited in raw footage. Charlton Heston and Edward Albert suffer through some of the more awkward scenes I've ever seen as father and son. Charlton lives up to his usual belligerent hero persona. On the other hand, Albert whines in a performance so lacking in confidence and nuance that makes Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker seem like Olivier playing Hamlet.

Despite the broad scale, the huge ambitions and impressive cast, this film falters. Part handicapped by the style choices stemming from the time it was made, part ruined by simply bad writing, this movie is a huge missed chance and should be avoided.


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Labels: Charlton Heston, Cliff Robertson, Edward Albert, film, Glenn Ford, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, movie review, Robert Mitchum, Robert Wagner, World War II

Phew! This is not age well. If you can see past the antique sets and fashions you will find a slightly heavy handed but still enjoyable story. Although the technical flaws of the movie may serve to keep many younger viewers away. Sure, if this were released today, it would be roundly criticized as over-agendized* posturing, but there's something about this old flick that I found worth the hassle.

Charlton Heston leads this film about a police detective who uncovers a horrible conspiracy in a world destroyed by Global Warming (yes, they were whining about it back then too). Heston gives his usual grand style of performance and generally upstages everyone else around him. His broad style is a little too large for this role and he gets in the way of some of the scenes. Overall, his performance works and the film doesn't suffer too greatly from his excesses.


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Labels: Charlton Heston, Chuck Connors, Edward G Robinson, film, Joseph Cotton, movie review, science fiction

Short Review: Not worth a dime.


Every time I see Charleston Heston in a movie, no matter if he’s a cowboy or gladiator, I keep waiting for him to bellow “Get your hands off me you damn dirty ape!” In some cases, the films would have vastly improved if he had done this.

Heston, before becoming a human political lightning rod, was one of the great Hollywood actors. I’ve never been a huge fan of his broad acting style. Usually, I find his performances to be forced and at times embarrassing. That said, the man commanded attention and whoa was he gifted with some pipes. The guy could read the instructional manual to my digital camera and make it sound like it was written by God himself.

Heston’s voice and larger than life presence couldn’t be put to less use in this film. Confused and insulting, this movie wastes more time than Al Franken’s make-up artist.

This story manages quite a feat. It’s as if writer/director Tom Gries sat down with two or three scripts, removed all of the cool scenes, and taped the rest together to make this mess. Gries attempts to break the western mold, not that this is really a western in the normal sense. He tries to deliver a realistic portrayal while steering away from traditional motifs. The film meanders a bit at the beginning and succeeds at being quite interesting. We are presented with a real man struggling with the very hard life of a cowboy. Heston plays the titular character, a tired, old cowboy who takes on the job of watching over a large ranch. He finds a mother and son squatting on the property. He lets them stay on the land. Before too long a crazed preacher and his minions, who Penny previously had a fight with, shows up for revenge. Prior to the preacher business, there's a realness to the beginning of the film that shows great promise. The striking beginning is then washed away by the stupidity of the rest of the film. When the main antagonist, Preacher Quint, is introduced the whole piece moves from being thoughtful and realistic to being retarded and then more retarded.

The unashamed anti-Christian portrayal by master over-actor Donald Pleasance as the wild-eyed psycho Quint is notable. Pleasance offers a number of almost unwatchable scenes involving his quivering denunciations of his enemies with fevered mini-sermons. The Christian as crazed loon is not uncommon to see in film, although its appearance seems to be on the decline, thankfully. The point is to combine the control and power of God and the frail emotionality of mankind…or something like that. Really what it is, is an attempt to be scary. A guy with a gun is scary. A guy with a gun saying something from The Bible is scarier still. Today, of course, a guy with a gun saying something from The Koran is just misunderstood and if you're scared you're probably a racist...but that’s a different subject isn’t it?

Christians will not have to be terribly patient to be offended and film lovers won’t be far behind. This is just a plain ol’ bad movie that offends because those who made it weren’t clever enough not to be so. The morality expressed in the movie exposes an immaturity that explains the rest of the piece. Don't waste your time.


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Labels: Charlton Heston, Donald Pleasance, film, movie review, western

Screenwriter: Karl Tunberg (The 7th Dawn)
Director: William Wyler (Roman Holiday)
Actors: Charlton Heston (Soylent Green), Jack Hawkins (Lawrence of Arabia), Haya Haraeet (The Secret Partner), and Stephen Boyd (Fantastic Voyage)

Labels: Charlton Heston, classic, Jesus Christ, movie trailer

Based on Richard Matheson's novel, this movie tells the story of Robert Neville, a scientist who creates a superbug that nearly wipes out mankind. The survivors of the virus have been turned into violent, psychotic creatures that cannot stand the daylight. Neville (Charlton Heston) struggles to survive the onslaught of attacks from the zombies. If this all sounds familiar, this movie comes from the same source material as the Will Smith movie I Am Legend.

This piece is laughable in many areas, not necessarily for faulty film making but because it hasn't dated well. Heston's belligerent style does work well when he's shooting zombies. When things slow down, his bigger than life persona is mismatched and the scenes get clunky.

The "zombies" Neville is threatened by are merely people dressed in black robes and sunglasses. Instead of inciting fear, they are invite snickers, the dated look and their insipid dialog is distracting and pushes the film from being a classic to being kitsch. The zombies believe they have been cursed with their disease as punishment for mankind's reliance on technology. This leads them to see Neville as the final living symbol of the sinful modern civilization. Over and over they bemoan our need to use technology and speak with religious fervor of the coming time where "things of the wheel" will go away. It never dawns on them that they're all wearing sunglasses, a part of sinful modern technology.

Putting this up against Smith's version, I'd recommend watching I Am Legend instead of sitting through this dated movie. It may have been quite something in its day, but now its just...well, silly.


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Labels: apocalypse, Charlton Heston, science fiction, zombie