Young Guns (1988)

John Tunstall (Terence Stamp) is in Lincoln when he spots lawmen trying to chase down a young thief.

Hoping to avoid yet another hanging, he invites the youth to hide in his wagon, then smuggles him back to his ranch.

The youngster turns out to be William H. Bonney (Emilio Estevez), and he’ll become the latest misguided youth Tunstall tries to put back on the right track in life.

Problem is, Tunstall’s having his own trouble in Lincoln. Rival shopkeeper and rancher L.G. Murphy (Jack Palance) has the law on his side and wants Tunstall out of the territory.

When those wishes turn deadly and he has Tunstall ambushed, Bonney and the other young men who have been working for him get themselves deputized, call themselves The Regulators and set out to even the score.

Those regulators also include Doc Scurlock (Kiefer Sutherland), Chavez y Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips), Dick Brewer (Charlie Sheen), Dirty Steve Stephens (Dermot Mulroney) and Charley Bowdre (Casey Siemaszko).

And with Bonney eager to build a reputation, the body count around these young guns quickly begins to rise.

Review:

At a time when big-budget Westerns weren’t exactly plentiful, no one needed another version of the Billy the Kid story, and certainly not one like this.

The good news: Kief Sutherland looks at home in Western duds. Emilio Estevez delivers a spirited performance in the lead role.

Ah, but his Billy is a crazed killer, a man who revels in his growing notoriety. a cold-blooded gunman with a twisted sense of humor. As the hero in a Western? Who cares if he dies?

Then there’ the romance foisted into the script. Seems one of Murphy’s shirts has been ruined at the laundry. So Murphy takes the pretty young Chinese daughter of the man who owns the laundry as payment and turns her into his personal sex slave.

Doc falls for the young woman and sneaks into her bedroom one night. In a scene that has to be seen to be believed, she cowers in fear that he’ll rape and cut her to bits one minute, then confesses to having a spot spot in her heart for him the next.

Then there’s Charley Bowdre, who rides 200 miles to rest his head on the chest of a whore as though she’s his mother. Meanwhile, as Dirty Steve, poor Dermot Mulroney gets to stand around quite dirty, alternately looking confused and crazy, before he dies in a pool of mud (get it? Dirty Steve?).

The scriptwriters should have been sued.

Brian Keith and Patrick Wayne have small roles. Keith makes the most of his as Buckshot Roberts, a Murphy man who isn’t afraid to take on all six Regulators.

Directed by:
Christopher Cain

Cast:
Emilio Estevez … William H. Bonney
Kiefer Sutherland … Doc Scurlock
Lou Diamond Phillips … Chavez y Chavez
Charlie Sheen … Dick Brewer
Dermot Mulroney … Dirty Steve Stephens
Casey Siemaszko … Charley Bowdre
Terence Stamp … John Tunstall
Jack Palance … L.G. Murphy
Terry O’Quinn … Alex McSween
Sharon Thomas Cain … Susan McSween
Brian Keith … Buckshot Roberts
Geoffrey Blake … J. McCloskey
Lisa Banes … Mallory
Patrick Wayne … Pat Garrett
Alice Sun … Yen Sun, aka China

Runtime: 107 min.

Memorable lines:

Dick Brewer: “Everybody close their lip for a god damned second and let me think.”

Dick Brewer to William Bonney: “You! You better stop believin’ newspapers. You ain’t no captain. And you sure as hell ain’t no Robin Hood.”

Charley Bowdre, after barfing while high on peyote: “Wow. This is great. This is great.”

William Bonney, of Buckshot Roberts: “He any good.”
Charley Bowdre: “He’s killed more people than smallpox.”

William Bonney, trying to convince Chavez y Chavez not to leave the gang: “See, you got three or four good pals, you got yourself a tribe. There ain’t nothing stronger than that.”

Yen Sun, after Doc sneaks into her room: “You come to lay with me and then cut me into tiny pieces with a knife. You’re the bandit who eats children and old people.”
Doc: “I eat meat and potatoes. Who told you that?”

Yen Sun, moments later: “I keep the flowers than you offered me in a little room, inside my head, inside my heart. Often you come in and you ask me to dance, and I say ‘yes.'”

Doc: “I used to ride with the dirty underwear gang out of Liberty, Missoura. (sic)”

Dirty Steve, watching William Bonney: “He ain’t all there, is he?”

Alex McSween, about the regulators turning into killers: “What happened out there?”
Doc, of Billy: “He’s a whirlwind out there. When you’re in it, you can’t get out.”

Alex McSween, when Billy offers him a gun: “Active participation in a gun battle would negate my insurance policy. I can’t do that.”

Doc, when the cavalry arrives to support Murphy’s legion of guns: “Billy, we’re good, but this is getting ridiculous.”

Terry O’Quinn as Alex McSween, John Tunstall’s lawyer in Young Guns (1988)

Sharon Thomas Cain as Susan McSween, the lawyer’s wife in Young Guns (1988)