This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Bros Before Hos
Plot Overview
This is one epic tale of legendary lawman Wyatt Earp
(Kevin Costner). Seems he grew up in Missouri—a Southern
state—whence he left grandfather and heartthrob
upon his family moving him to Pella, Iowa—in the North. His
two oldest brothers James (David Andrews) and Virgil (Michael
Madsen) joined the Union army while Wyatt being yet shy of military
age stayed behind to play soldier with guns. This movie opens with
the war winding down and the family fixing to move to California.
Says its head Nicholas Earp (Gene Hackman), “Remember this,
all of you. Nothing counts so much as blood. The rest are just
strangers.” Okay.
On the wagon train, Wyatt gets a
gander of the expansive wild west. He drinks java rather than
rotgut and resists the attentions of pretty prostitute Sally,
then returns to Missouri to court and win his yearned for Urilla
Sutherland (Annabeth Gish.) Both families attend the
wedding presided over (“Be faithful to him as long as you
both shall live”) by a “vested judge of the State
Missouri Court”—presumably Wyatt's grandfather.
The father declaims, “I'm a man that believes in the law.
After your family, it's about the only thing you got to believe
in.” Unfortunately, life expectancy was not so long back
then. Wyatt's bride dies and is given a Christian burial. He's
devastated and must get away.
As Wyatt makes his way
from Wichita to Dodge City to Tombstone his investments in
gambling and mining don't pan out and he has to fall back on what
he's good at, enforcing the law for which he's also in demand. He's
joined by three of his brothers and some riffraff he picked up
along the way. Their wives feel more like settling down in one
place, which leads to a confrontation:
Bessie Earp: “We are your wives. Don't we ever count more than the damn brothers?”Wyatt Earp: “No, Bessie, you don't. Wives come and go, that's the plain truth of it. They run off. They die.”
The townsfolk, however, complain about his methods calling him a “hard-ass,” although, truth be told, it seems to be necessary in that environment. Recall, if you will, the adage, “You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.” It shows up as well in a Saki short story:
“I am a victim of the war,” he exclaimed, after a little preliminary conversation.“One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs,” I answered, with the appropriate callousness of a man who had seen some dozens of square miles of devastated countryside and roofless homes.
“Eggs!” he vociferated, “but it is precisely of eggs that I am about to speak. Have you ever considered what is the great drawback in the excellent and most useful egg—the ordinary, everyday egg of commerce and cookery?”
“Its tendency to age rapidly is sometimes against it,” I hazarded. “Unlike the United States of North America, which grow more respectable and self-respecting the longer they last, an egg gains nothing by persistence; it resembles your Louis the Fifteenth, who declined in popular favor with every year he lived—unless the historians have entirely misrepresented his record.” (494–5)
Likewise, the deeds of Wyatt Earp grow more respectable the longer they are told.
Ideology
Strapping young Wyatt has a small
potatoes lesson he could teach us about success in life, along the
lines of King Solomon deriving lessons from nature: (Prov. 30:24) “There be four things which
are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise:”
(Prov. 30:25) “The ants are a people
not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer.” Start
working in your youth, i.e. the
summer of life. We see Wyatt's younger siblings working an 80 acre
corn field without benefit of mechanization. His father castigates
him for trying to sneak off (to war): “You take on a job, you
finish it. Any man who can't be depended on steady ain't worth the
trouble of having around.” That lesson stands him in good
stead as he goes from a position of local constable to stage coach
driver, prize fight ref, buffalo
hunter, faro croupier, and various ones of lawman.
(Prov. 30:26) “The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks.” The conies seem to follow the three guiding principles of real estate: location, location, location. They make their homes where there's safety, in the rocks. Wyatt's dad puts it to them: “We'll go to California and see what we can make of that place. There are opportunities for lawyers out there and plenty of rich land for those who know how to work.”
(Prov. 30:27) “The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands.” Success involves having the right cohorts. Besides three or four brothers who would join him by and by, Wyatt picked up two needed buffalo skinners, brothers Ed (Bill Pullman) and Bat (Tom Sizemore) Masterson whom he later brought into law enforcement with him. And he added Doc Holliday (Dennis Quaid) an unlikely southerner (“It's not always easy being my friend, but I'll be there when you need me.”)
(Prov. 30:28) “The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces.” Finally, one needs to take hold of her own niche in life. That palace gets swept regularly, but the spider keeps putting up new webs. Wyatt understood that a salaried person would never get rich, so he kept making investments. When they didn't pay off, he would try again. He finally teamed up with adventurous Jewish showgirl Josie Marcus (Joanna Going) to claim his gold.
Production Values
“” (1994) was directed by Lawrence Kasdan. It was written by Dan Gordon and Lawrence Kasdan. It stars Kevin Costner, Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman, Michael Madsen and Mark Harmon. The performances were uniformly good, from good guys and bad.
MPA rated it PG–13 for strong gunfights, some language and sensuality. It was beautifully filmed and well paced. The brassy background music was enough to make one sit up and pay attention. Runtime is 3 hours 11 minutes on two sides of a disc.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
It is what it is. The bad girls were just that, but Urilla was a model Christian wife any guy would be lucky to have. The bad guys were part of a west that needed taming. Due to syndicated exposure, the audience will likely be familiar with the basics and can decide on it with knowledge.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Edge of your seat action-packed. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Good for Groups. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quotation is from the Authorized Version. Pub. 1611. Rev. 1769. Software.
Saki. “The Square Egg.” Compiled in Great Short Stories Of the War. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1930. Print.
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