Television film based on an original Gore Vidal
screenplay. It had existed years before
as The Death of Billy the Kid and was, in fact, the basis of what became
Arthur Penn’s The Left-Handed Gun (1958), starring Paul Newman in a role
initially intended for James Dean. Penn
and Newman maneuvered Vidal out and made a very different film; one that,
(though despised by Vidal), is a troubled masterpiece and often thought of as
one of the first American New Wave films, if not the first. In any case, it was a project that Vidal long
wanted to revive. Unfortunately, it
isn’t anything too special, however interesting the script itself may have been. It would’ve benefitted immensely from an
auteur behind the camera instead of a TV hack, but for some reason Vidal always
bristled at the notion that filmmakers were actually artists, and he certainly
suffered for that conceit. In the title
role, Val Kilmer is by far the film’s greatest asset, submerging himself in the
iconic persona about as well as he would a year later as Jim Morrison in Oliver
Stone’s The Doors. Vidal was
interested in Billy’s charismatic effect on those around him, including those
who only read of his exploits, and eventually the conundrum caused by Billy’s
awareness of his own legend. None of
that really comes out, though, thanks to William Graham’s pedestrian direction
and the film’s overall lack of visual flair or dramatic momentum. I’d say it earns points by being a sober
alternative to the frivolous Young Guns of around the same time, but it
inescapably suffers in comparison to Arthur Penn's and Sam Peckinpah’s interpretations
of the exact same story; The Left-Handed Gun and Pat Garrett &
Billy the Kid (1973), respectively.
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