Review of Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) by Timothy M — 11 Aug 2010

I know a certain constiuency finds falt with Peckinpah's version of the Billy Kid legend, but if there are glaring flaws then I can't find them. Sure, Dylan may be kind of forced into the film, but it's so cool seeing him on screen as an outlaw with James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson that it makes up for any potential miscasting.

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a beautifully filmed, haunting, elegiac tale of two friends damned to become each other's enemies. It is a film about the death of the American frontier and those who strive to keep it open and their opponents who fall in with those who would put a fence around the American frontier, to paraphrase Billy in the movie.

Peckinpah's direction is sublime and Dylan's score and songs add another haunting level to the images. Appearances from Jason Robards, Harry Dean Stanton, and Slim Pickens further make the film into a truly brilliant epic that explores the nature of fate: for indeed Billy's demise is as fated as the demise of the American west.

Equal parts character study and hyper-violent action film, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid demonstrates the genuine emotion and depth that the Western genre has to offer.