MOVIECLUB #5 - Due Monday 5/25: Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

dang. i was in the middle of writing my response--and i lost it... aggravating

take #2 soon

Same problem here Nspan.

This was not my type of movie. When it comes to Westerns I like movies like Shane and Desperado. My problem with this movie is it's story. I know very little about the Billy The Kid legends so from my perspective it was a story about a battle between two ***holes. I felt no sympathy for either character. In fact I disliked them both intensely solely due to the way they were portrayed in the movie. I mean Billy killed the religious guy because "he said not very nice things to him", shot a good guy in the back, and cheated in a duel against what appeared to be a good friend (the movie wasn't clear on this point, or why that guy was deputised and why he accepted etc). I thought there was some sort of honour amongst the old west outlaws. I ended up not caring who did what to who. The other thing I disliked about the story was that they did not explain why people were shooting each other. It just seemed like if you were riding along and met someone along the way then shooting them is the thing to do. 5/10.
For the record, I watched the 2005 Peckinpah scholars edition.

i was sure i finally hammered out a (second) response to this, but i'm not seeing it..

i feel a little bit cheated by having only seen the 2005 version, but i'm not so torn up about it that i'm moving the director's cut to the top of my netflix queue.. i'll see it in due time, but i'm assuming i'll be much more satisifed by it...

one thought that kept ringing through my mind while i watched this movie was how silly Young Guns (the definitive Billy the Kid story of my generation) must seem to anyone who saw this movie first.. i'd like to hear from someone on this--do we have anyone here who actually saw PG&BtK first??