Young Guns
Director Christopher Cain
Starring Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland & Lou Diamond Phillips
Rated M
Score 4.5/6

Young Guns 2
Director Geoff Murphy
Starring Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland & Lou Diamond Phillips
Rated M
Score 4/6

Young Guns
A group of young gunmen, led by Billy the Kid, become deputies to avenge the murder of the rancher who became their benefactor. But when Billy takes their authority too far, they become the hunted.
Young Guns 2
In 1881, cattle baron John Chisum pays a bounty to Patrick Floyd Garrett to kill outlaw Billy the Kid.




Okay, I might not have gotten this review up by the end of the weekend but I did actually remember to watch this on the 26th of August, the same day as ‘Brushy Bill’ Roberts’ birthday and because it was ‘Brushy Bill’s birthday I started with the second of the two movies. While writing this I was interested to find out that a telemovie Billy the Kid starring Val Kilmer was released in 1989 one year after Young Guns. On a blink and you miss it note apparently Tom Cruise briefly appears in a non-speaking role as one of Murphy’s henchmen in the first movie.
If memory serves when I was younger and prettier, Young Guns 2 was one of the movies that helped foster my fondness for the Westerns as a genre. It had been more than a few years since I last saw either of the Young Guns movies and perhaps by modern standards the action might seem a little dated.
In the second movie, for me the soundtrack by Bon Jovi is one of those stand out albums. I loved the dynamic between Emilio Estevez and  Christian Slater. At times I thought their characters came across as bickering brothers. I enjoyed William Petersen’s performance as Pat Garrett. I would have loved to have seen the same actor portray Garrett in both movies but I suppose that’s just one of my eccentricities about movies showing. With how it is portrayed in the movie you can’t help but feel sympathy for Garrett for what he had to do to ‘The Kid’, Estevez portrayed ‘The Kid’ as if he was a charismatic whirlwind and something to stop him needed to be done. In the first movie I loved the performances of  Terry O’Quinn as Alexander McSween and Terence Stamp as John Tunstall. Young Guns just like its sequel does have its over the top moments and as action sequences go I love the breakout from the McSween house.
It will be interesting to see the direction filmmakers go with Young Guns 3: Alias Billy the Kid, if and when it gets to the screen because it should be noted that if you look hard enough with the history of Billy the Kid the filmmakers certainly didn’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.