A time-traveling video crew arrives in Tombstone one day too late to capture the shootout at the O.K. Corral.
So they begin interviewing the survivors of the famous gunfight, including Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Ike Clanton, Sheriff Behan, Doc’s girl Kate and a saloon owner named Hafford.
Apparently unfazed by the concept of time travel or videotaped interviews, they vow to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Then they proceed to relate different versions of events, from what led to the encounter to how it actually transpired and even who was armed when the shooting began.
Kate grumbles about the influence the Earps have over her Doc. Hafford thinks all cowboys should be hunted down like Indians. Behan thinks the entire episode was unnecessary.
Doc and Wyatt, of course, feel justified in their actions. In the eyes of Ike Clanton, the men who would become heroes of the West are nothing more than cold-blooded killers.
Review:
About the last thing the Western genre needed was another film on the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
The fact that this time the story is told in the style of Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 film “Rashomon” seems like nothing more than a gimmick.
It’s sorta interesting to hear Doc’s girl refer to men with female pronouns. There’s lots of talk about a stage robbery the Earps might have been involved in planning and that might have provided some of the impetus for the shootout.
If you can hang around to the 1:08:00 mark, you’ll get to see the Earps and Doc Holliday hop into a modern police car and drive to the O.K. Corral, emergency lights activated.
If you hang around a couple of minutes longer, you’ll get to see Wyatt’s gal play a violin to sooth his spirits and get so caught up in playing that she burns “another” hole in one of his white shirts.
What you won’t find is a reason to spend 80-plus minutes watching this film. Or a reason to spend a single penny to stream or purchase it.
And, by the way, couldn’t those time travelers just have jumped back one more day so they could witnessed the famous shootout in person?
Directed by:
Alex Cox
Cast:
Adam Newberry … Wyatt Earp
Jesse Lee Pacheco … Johnny Behan
Christine Doidge … Kate
Eric Schumacher … Doc Holliday
Benny Lee Kennedy .. Ike Clanton
Richard Anderson … Hafford
Jason Graham … Virgil Earp
Shayn Herndon … Morgan Earp
Michele Bauer … Allie Earp
Hayden Winston … Frank McLaury
Bradford Trojan … Tom McLaury
James Miller … Billy Clanton
Callie Hutchison … Mattie Earp
Rogelio Camarillo … Billy Clairborne
Brenda Jean Foley … Mollie Fly
Runtime: 83 min.
Memorable lines:
Ike Clanton, of the Earps and Holliday: “Last night, they tried to bullshit me. Nobody bullshits me. Nobody!”
Kate: “Know what they used to call Wyatt Earp and her brothers? The fighting pimps. That’s right. They were gamblers too. And posse gang. But mostly brothel guards.”
Doc Holliday: “Ike Clanton said what?”
Kate: “That he was looking for you and carrying a rifle.”
Doc, coughing again: “If God will let me live to get my clothes on, he will see me.”
Doc Holliday: “I have a reputation as a hard man. A dime novel character. The red terror of the border. I am said to have put more rustlers and cowboys under the sod than any one man in the West. Yet I defy anyone (the coughing starts).”
Kate: “What’s the odds, so long as we’re happy. Your skulls and mine might be footballs for the Apaches before a week.”