Memorable, crazy movie

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Released just 1 year after the similar "Tombstone", "Wyatt Earp" was the Kevin Costner's response to Kevin Jarre's script, focused more on the central character of Wyatt since his upbringing, instead of the side characters that bring nothing to the film.Teaming again with Lawrence Kasdan after "The Big Chill" ('83) and the way popular "Silverado" ('85), that helped to resurrect the western genre in modern times, Kevin Costner, this time also as a producer and taking the lead role of the intrepid Wyatt Earp, both deliver an insightful semibiographical western film about the life of the legendary lawman since he was a boy in his family farm in Missouri to his later days in the Gold Rush in Alaska.With "Silverado" and his personal tryumph, "Dances with Wolves" in his resume, Costner moves comfortably in the western genre and provides a good performance as the stubborn and ruthless Wyatt Earp, giving him the needed humanity as a man who lost the love of his life and became cold and emotionless, only believing in kinship and that the law should prevail in the wild west, until he mets Josie Marcus, a daring actress and falls in love again.The movie is overlong and in the first hour the pace moves like a snail, but like an old american epic it takes time to establish the character(s) for telling their story(ies), even if some scenes were cut out to shorten the movie for another half a hour, creating then some loose ends for certain subplots and side characters, but at least was less disjointed than "Tombstone" in that matter.The production values are all splendid invocating the Old West, especially the beautiful cinematography by Owen Roizman, nominated for an Academy Award and the orchestration by James Newton Howard which reminds a lot of Bruce Broughton's score in "Silverado".The cast is good, but not as great as the rival "Tombstone", featuring besides Costner, Dennis Quaid who stole the movie as the lunger Doc Holliday, Wyatt's best friend and right hand, the actor is almost unrecognizable skinny playing the character and provides a memorable haunting performance that deserved to be Oscar nominated (he was even better than the amazing Kilmer's rendition of Doc); Gene Hackman in an extended cameo as the patriarch Earp; Michael Madsen, David Andrews, Linden Ashby & Jim Caviezel (in an earlier role) playing respectively, Virgil, James, Morgan & Warren Earp with Catherine O'Hara, JoBeth Williams (re-teaming with Kasdan after "The Big Chill") & Alison Elliott playing their wives with Annabeth Gish, Mare Winningham & Joanna Going portraying the three wifes of the long life of Wyatt Earp.The villains are less showy here than "Tombstone" and barely got decent screentime with the exception of Jeff Fahey (re-teaming with Kasdan after "Silverado") as Ike Clanton and Lewis Smith as Curly Bill Brocius. Strangely, the Johnny Ringo character way prominent in "Tombstone" as played greatly by Michael Biehn is only mentioned in the third act and was played by a stuntman.Mark Harmon as the sleazy Sheriff Johnny Behan; Tom Sizemore and Bill Pullman as the brothers Masterson, Wyatt's lawmen and Isabella Rossellini in the tiny role of Big Nose Kate, Doc Holliday's mistress complete the main cast.In short, "Wyatt Earp" flopped hard when it was released and was bashed by critics because of its length, slow pace and too much focus on Costner's character, with "Tombstone" being the critics and fans' favorite, but besides its all-star cast, fast pacing and shoot'em up / action oriented, the Cosmatos / Russell effort is inferior to this Kasdan / Costner re-teaming of "Wyatt Earp" that needs to be rediscovered by fans of an all american period piece epic film, produced and directed in the old style of the Western tradition...

I'm writing here starting with a clean slate: I watched the film without knowing who Wyatt Earp was, or that there was another film (Tombstone) about the same guy, which everyone has been comparing Wyatt Earp to. So, I'm not prejudiced and I'm not gonna make comparisons. It was just a boring film, with a nonsensical script that dragged on and on unnecessarily, occasionally introduced new characters who didn't have any meaningful contribution to the plot, and little to no sense of adventure and excitement. But the most annoying thing in the movie, I have to admit, is Kevin Costner himself. It seems that Mr Costner has a knack for playing the same character in every movie he stars in: a brooding, smile-less, miserable, cold-outside- but-with-a-heart-of- gold tough macho guy. Well, not such a good guy here, in my opinion. Just a cold-hearted bastard, as one of the characters calls him. But I digress. So, if the film wasn't unbearable enough, Costner's performance makes it even worse. Towards the end I had to fast- forward; I didn't miss anything important, and you wouldn't either, believe you me.

I am not a Kevin Costner fan and think he is the most one dimensional actor around. Sometimes his delivery in this movie struck me as amateurish. I thought he wasn't bad in DANCING WITH WOLVES but that was his best effort.I had to smile at the good guys wearing black and looking like morticians,(which they were in a sense). All that hot desert weather and they were in heat absorbing black.The scenes with wives and lovers were tedious and added little to the film.Frankly, any movie this long should be classified as epic, and this one certainly did not fall into that category. I can think of a good handful of westerns without much effort, superior to this one.

The movie Tombstone was released a few months earlier, it was shorter and more action packed. It was also a better film.Wyatt Earp clocking in at over three hours is too long. It marked the beginning of Costner's decline at the box office. The audience frankly had enough of his epic and half baked films.Wyatt Earp wants to be a thoughtful ambitious biopic. It emerges as dull, bloated, uneven and about as truthful as many other pictures of this famous lawman with added overbearing score by James Newton Howard.Kevin Costner looks uneasy playing the younger Wyatt as an overgrown boy scout getting daily lectures on the importance of family by dad, Gene Hackman.After the sudden death of his first wife, what gradually emerges is a cold hard man who enforces the law his way, that way being by the barrel of the gun with his brothers as fellow enforcers.Director Lawrence Kasdan is shackled by Costner wanting to be the star of the show. The actors playing the brothers Earp do not get much of a look in as they are in the shadows of Costner, their wives come across more forcefully as they stand up to Wyatt for putting their husbands in danger. Rightly so, they all get shot and a few of them die.Even Dennis Quaid who lost weight to play Doc Holliday is underused and to me was largely a cameo. I can see why Val Kilmer overshadowed him in the rival Tombstone.The film is simply not compelling enough.