st-shot
Wild Bill Hickock is as famous as any old west icon, his tragic end while holding the original dead man's hand as well known as any western lead spitting incident from the era. But that doesn't restrain director George Hill from this flight of fancy that takes more than its usual share of liberties presenting incidents that fall somewhere between fact and fiction. The first 15 minutes of Wild Bill crackle with action and gunfire as Hickok (Jeff Bridges) makes his way across the American West solidifying his reputation as one tough hombre. Brutal and to the point Hill moves his story from Abilene to Deadwood in no time where he reunites with trail buddy Calamity Jane (Ellen Barkin). Also seeking out Bill in Deadwood is Jack McCall, the son of a man he killed over a woman, watch, touching his hat though none of this any basis in history. A sloppy cat and mouse game ensues as McCall calls in reinforcements to deal with Hickock but this only serves to provide more cannon fodder for Bill to waste in a rousing stable shootout since like most of the incidentals in Wild Bill this does not even remotely approach the history.Bridges as Hickock carries himself with authority and confidence except in a brief foray on stage with Buffalo Bill where he comes across as wooden a cigar store promoter. Guarded to begin with Bridges taciturn responses partner well with his pearl handled six-shooters that do most of his talking. Barkin's Calamity Jane lacks consistency as she slides from frontier bullwhip expert to her schoolgirl crush with Bill. John Hurt as Bill's Boswell remains smarmily reverential while David Arquette's MaCall plays it spoiled brat most of the way.Hill playing fast and loose with the Hickok saga seems content to fill scenes with fallacy and letting lead fly. In one gun battle we have Bill getting a dozen shots out of each of his six shooters without having time to reload. In addition to padding the film with non-events Hill goes self indulgent with some black and white oblique angle flashback to add to the film's running time that begins to lose it's rhythm by the one-third mark with Hickok and MacCall having wasteful confrontations (one bizarre one in an opium den) that pile on minutes but does not advance the story as it stumbles to its historic conclusion, failing to separate the man from the legend while adding to the apocryphal in this bungled western.
tieman64
"Wild Bill" was ripped to shreds by critics, ignored by audiences, and went on to become a huge box office failure. But with Jeff Bridges embraced as a bearded guru in the wake of "The Big Lebowski", the film has now become a huge cult favourite. And why not? It's a deliciously psychedelic western; an orgy of over the top violence and drunken wisecracks, the film would also give birth to the HBO series "Deadwood" decades later. Walter Hill spent his career making westerns and so by the time he directed "Wild Bill" he already knew the genre inside out. This is thus a film best appreciated by those familiar with and completely bored by the western genre. Those in search of something a little bit different. A little bit bizarre. The plot: Jeff Bridges plays Wild Bill Hickok, a half blind, always drunk, perpetually stoned lawman who lives out his remaining days at Deadwood, the infamous town in South Dakota. Deadwood is handled like George Lucas handled the town of Mos Eisley in "Star Wars". It's a "hive of scum and villainy", bar fights, gun battles and drunken brawls occurring left right and centre. The streets are muddy, opium dens are overbooked and a hellish rain beats down every night. "This town reminds me of something from the Bible," one character murmurs. "Which part?" Wild Bill asks. "The part right before God gets angry," comes the reply, summing up the tone of the film perfectly.Faced with "woman problems", weighed by his moustache and haunted by his past, Wild Bill mopes around Deadwood, unaware that a disgruntled young man is plotting to kill him. In typical western fashion, the film builds toward their final act face-off, but Hill subverts expectations at every turn. He's less interested in a mythological construction of Wild Bill than a trippy deconstruction, using flashbacks and a fragmented narrative to nosedive into both Bill's past and personal demons.But can we trust these flashbacks? Are these visions the truth or are they attempts by Bill to justify his violent past? In the film's present, Bill surrounds himself by those who blindly worship him. Calamity Jane, an old flame, spends the film lusting for Bill. Likewise Old Charlie, an Englishman who is always eager to defend Bill using charm and logic. Same story with California Joe, an old timer who is always spinning yarns and telling "tall tales" about Wild Bill. Bill, in other words, walks around with his own little propaganda machine, his circle of fawning friends all busy mythologising him.With Bill's real world an illusion, what exactly is there in the film's flashbacks which demonize him? He kills an Indian only because the Indian challenged him, he killed a man in a duel, but that jerk stole his watch. Likewise, he fights a guy in a wheelchair, but not before tying himself to a chair to make things fair. There's always the notion that these "flashbacks", these "traumas", are themselves part of the Wild Bill mythology. That perhaps it is the very falsity of these flashbacks, the very film, which is tormenting Bill.In any case, the film is primarily of interest because it allows us to watch Jeff Bridges chewing scenery. For all his wisecracks and violent flourishes, Bridges' Wild Bill is a fragile guy unable to relate to people, has no family, is going blind and is increasingly crushed as the film gets more and more claustrophobic. Hill's aesthetic strategy is such that you can feel the walls drawing in as the film progresses, the shadows, the mud, the rain, the walls themselves, closing inexorably in, until Bill finds himself at a cramped poker table, a gun behind his skull. But what's great is that Hill suggests that this "claustrophobia" is the result of the Wild Bill myth. That the "need" to constantly adhere to the public's perception of "who Wild Bill is", is ultimately what boxes Bill in and results in his demise. Trapped by his own lore, he sets about a chain of events which leads to his death. Ironically, while it is the "Wild Bill myth" which leads to a gunman seeking revenge on Bill, it is Bill's act of forgiveness toward this very man, his breaking of his dime-novel persona, that earns him a bullet in the brain.8/10 – Val Kilmer's performance as Doc Holiday in "Tombstone" was much lauded in the 90s, but Jeff Bridges' work here is equally awesome. Incidentally, Walter Hill directed the pilot episode of "Deadwood", this film serving as the template for the HBO series' tone and style. Thematically, the film does exactly what "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" does, but arguably a bit better.Worth one viewing. See Hill's "The Warriors" and "The Long Riders".
bkoganbing
In Wild Bill we get to see one of the best characterizations of the legendary western character. Jeff Bridges joins a pantheon of great players who've essayed the part of the marshal of Abilene, Kansas. Folks like William S. Hart, Gary Cooper, Roy Rogers, Guy Madison, Bill Elliott, Forrest Tucker, and Charles Bronson have all played Hickok with varying degrees of success.Some of these people have played Hickok more or less nobly as the script and their screen persona permitted. Someone like Roy Rogers you know without seeing the film had Hickok be a straight arrow. The real Wild Bill was someone who was as tough as he had to be to enforce law and order in a wild and woolly town like Abilene, Kansas circa 1870-1871 when Hickok kept the peace there.Among those other actors who played Hickok also includes Jeff's father Lloyd Bridges who did it in an hour television drama on the Great Adventure series. I saw that years ago and I wish I could remember more of it so I could compare father and son. The part I best recall is the famous story of Hickok accidentally shooting his own deputy who made the fatal mistake of coming up behind him too quietly and after he'd just shot one of Texas's rowdier cowboys. It's part of the Hickok legend and shown here as well.Of course the manner of Hickok's death has also entered into folklore with wide and varying accounts of the kind of man Hickok's killer Jack McCall was. He was probably closer to the sneaky rat that Cecil B. DeMille had Porter Hall play him as in The Plainsman. Here he's shown as a drunk and scared kid played by David Arquette much in the same manner as Bob Ford was played by Casey Affleck last year. Arquette does well in the role.Ellen Barkin is cast as Calamity Jane and while she's as tough as the famous frontierswoman, she's way too good looking. Too bad Louis B. Mayer never thought of using Marie Dressler for the part back in the day. Even she was a little too femme for the part.The film is done in Citizen Kane style, narrated by John Hurt who is a close friend of Hickok in the story. It's a pretty good western, coming out when those are few and far between.
