Directed by Christopher Cain from a screenplay written by John Fusco, the Western movie Young Guns reached theatres on August 12, 1988 – so I was probably 5 years old by the time the film reached VHS some months later. And that’s when I became a fan of the film. I have clear memories of taking in VHS and cable viewings of Young Guns as a child, watching the movie with family members and getting wrapped up in the story of legendary outlaw Billy the Kid (as played by Emilio Estevez) and the Lincoln County War.
But Young Guns didn’t tell the complete story of Billy the Kid – which turned out to be a good thing for John Fusco. When the film proved to be a financial success, Fusco got to come back to write the sequel that was ordered by Morgan Creek Productions and distributor 20th Century Fox. Directed by Geoff Murphy, Young Guns II (which was originally announced under the title Young Guns II: Hellbent for Leather) covers the time between the end of the Lincoln County War and the night when Billy was supposedly killed by lawman Pat Garrett. In reality, there were around three years between those events, but the sequel picks up one years after the Lincoln County War came to its bloody end and condenses the last years of Billy’s life into a shorter period.
The opening scene is a surprising one, though. An old man is seen making his way across the desert with his horse – and when he stops for a rest on a sand dune, a semi truck goes speeding past on a road not far away from him. We’re not in the Old West (yet). Instead, the film is book-ended with scenes that take place around 1950, and the old man is Emilio Estevez in old age makeup as a guy called Brushy Bill Roberts – a man who, in 1940 / ‘50, claimed to be Billy the Kid, having reached the age of 90. There was a lot of evidence to back up his claim and he had the support of people who were known to have associated with Billy the Kid, but the authorities discredited him.
As far as this film is concerned, Brushy Bill was Billy the Kid, and the story is told as he reminisces about his final days as an outlaw to attorney Charles Phalen (Bradley Whitford).
Flashing back to 1879, we find Billy riding with glory hound "Arkansas" Dave Rudabaugh (Christian Slater) and his good friend Pat Garrett. The Garrett character appeared in the first movie, where he was played by Patrick Wayne (son of John Wayne), but this time around William Petersen was cast in the role... and the way this film presents his relationship with Billy, putting forth the idea that they rode together and stole horses together, is not accurate. Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett did know each other, they’d play cards together and hung out in the same saloon, but they were not the best outlaw buds Young Guns II says they were.
Civil War veteran General Lew Wallace (Scott Wilson) – who would have been working on his novel Ben-Hur around this time - has just been appointed governor of the New Mexico territory and is cleaning the place up, with one of his priorities being to bring to justice anyone who was involved with the Lincoln County War. Which means that Billy’s old pals Josiah "Doc" Scurlock (Kiefer Sutherland) and Jose Chavez y Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips) are plucked out of their new lives and locked up, and Wallace arranges a meeting with Billy so they can make peace with each other. If Billy turns state’s evidence and testifies against men who fought on the other side of the Lincoln County War, he’ll be pardoned. The only catch: he’ll have to leave New Mexico, never to return. Billy is on board with the idea that his testimony will lead to the hanging of fifteen of his enemies... but once he takes the deal, it’s pulled out from under him by the prosecuting attorney, who intends to charge, sentence, and hang him.
So Billy has to escape from custody and takes Doc and Chavez with him, as well as "Arkansas" Dave, former farmer Hendry William French (Alan Ruck), and a 14-year-old kid named Tom O'Folliard (Balthazar Getty). Pat Garrett doesn’t go on the run with them, planning to settle down and open an “eating house.” But the authorities have other plans for him. When Billy gets on the bad side of wealthy cattle baron John Chisum (James Coburn, given dialogue similar to a line he spoke while playing Pat Garrett in the 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid), Chisum and Wallace decide to “hire a horse thief to catch a horse thief.” They need someone who’s familiar with Billy the Kid to track him down and eliminate him. So they make Pat Garrett the sheriff of Lincoln County and provide him with $1000 and all resources needed (including back-up from a character played by Viggo Mortensen, who carried his Texas Chainsaw Massacre III voice / accent over into this movie) to carry out the extermination of Billy.
Young Guns II was given a theatrical release on August 1, 1990. I didn’t catch it on the big screen, but I remember eagerly looking forward to watching it as soon as it came to VHS, at which time I probably would have been 7 years old. And, as mentioned, an established Young Guns fan of two years. But when I first watched this movie, I was disappointed. Although the first film has its heavy moments, what sticks with me the most about it is its sense of fun. It’s a fun movie to watch, with great action and highly entertaining interactions between characters that were played by the likes of, in addition to Estevez, Sutherland, and Phillips, Charlie Sheen, Dermot Mulroney, and Casey Siemaszko. Problem is, half of the ensemble was killed off in the first film, and – while Young Guns II also has a great cast – the interactions between Estevez, Sutherland, Phillips, and new additions Slater, Petersen, Ruck, and Getty just can’t live up to the ones between the characters in the first movie. "Arkansas" Dave is a pain in the ass most of the time, Tom’s youth is his entire character, Hendry doesn’t have much character at all... and Pat Garrett is infuriating.
There are times when you can tell that Garrett’s heart isn’t fully in his pursuit of Billy and the gang, but he still turned against his friend very easily, and that $1000 changes him a lot. He’s even a douche to their mutual acquaintance Jane Greathouse (Jenny Wright), a bordello owner who takes in Billy and the others for a brief interlude. Billy speaks highly of Garrett on multiple occasions, but the audience is never given much reason to care for him, especially when he turns into the bad guy.
You might think Billy being on the run for the majority of the movie would make for a fun, action-packed viewing experience – but while there are fun action moments, I have always found Young Guns II to be a dark, dreary, depressing movie. Billy’s back is against the wall throughout, and this brings a heaviness to most of the scenes as the authorities relentlessly pursue him. It doesn’t help that there was some trouble with both Sutherland and Phillips. Sutherland struggled to fit Young Guns II into his schedule and said he would only do the film if Doc were killed off. Fusco had intended to let the character live, because the real Doc Scurlock lived to an old age and went on to have a respectable life after his outlaw days, but Sutherland insisted. So Doc gets killed. Which is a bummer. At least he makes it 78 minutes into the film’s 104 minute running time.
The trouble with Phillips was an accident. While working on set, the actor was dragged by a spooked horse and broke his right arm in four places (and also fractured a kneecap), so his arm injury had to be worked into the movie. That’s why there’s a scene where Chavez and "Arkansas" Dave get into a fight over the desecration of an Apache burial ground, a fight that leaves Chavez with a knife stuck through his right arm. That’s not a scene that helps us feel any better about "Arkansas" Dave. And even though the real Chavez, like the real Doc, survived his outlaw days, the filmmakers decided to kill Chavez off in the most depressing moment of the film. At least we have rumors and rumblings of a long-awaited Young Guns III that might retcon the death of Chavez.
I know there are fans out there who actually enjoy Young Guns II more than the first movie, but I’ve never understood how they manage to do that. For me, the first movie is a lot more entertaining and the sequel has always been a bummer of a let down. That said, I do still have some appreciation for it, just because it gave me another chance to watch Emilio Estevez’s Billy the Kid in action. As I discussed in my Film Appreciation write-up of the first Young Guns (which I wrote and posted 14 years ago), I dug a taped-off-cable VHS copy of the film out of our collection in late 1994 – and that viewing was when Young Guns became My Favorite Movie for a while. I became obsessed with Billy the Kid, reading everything about him that I could get my hands on. I wrote a fan fiction script for Young Guns III, writing my friends in as a new group of outlaws led by Billy, and we had shootout games based on the script during recess every day for quite a while. What I didn’t mention was that we also had a taped-off-cable VHS copy of Young Guns II, and I would often watch the two movies back-to-back... even though I never liked the second movie all that much. I just wanted to spend more time watching Billy the Kid. I invited a friend over to my house for a Young Guns/Young Guns II double feature, and he felt the same way I did about the sequel. He liked the first movie, though, and even borrowed by copy of it so he could watch it some more at his place.
So we have a sequel that’s a step down from its predecessor (but not for every viewer) and a bit of a downer. There were decisions made in the making of Young Guns II that I wish hadn’t been made. But it’s still a good movie overall, and there is one element of the film that I do find very impressive: while Anthony Marinelli and Brian Banks composed a cool score for the first movie, Alan Silvestri and Jon Bon Jovi teamed up to give the second film a score that sounds even more dynamic and iconic.
Bon Jovi got involved because the filmmakers wanted to use his song “Wanted Dead or Alive” on the soundtrack – but since the song is about the life of a touring rock musician, he didn’t think it was the right fit for a Western. So he wrote the theme song “Blaze of Glory” specifically for the movie and delivered a banger of a tune that plays over the end credits, then went on to release a full album of songs “inspired by Young Guns II.”
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