tombstone

As a kid, I didn’t like Westerns. I confess I was loath to watch cowboys and Indians duke it out on
horseback. “Tombstone” changed all that forever. It’s a great Western made greater by the fact
that it awakened an interest in the genre for me personally. At the time of its release, the winter of
1993, rumors were already gathering that Kevin Costner was filming a big budget epic titled “Wyatt
Earp.”

“Tombstone” beat Costner to the punch and turned out to be a much better film. Director George
P. Cosmatos tells the story of Wyatt Earp and his brothers’ feud with the Cowboys of Tombstone on
a mythic level. Where Costner’s version was an attempt at history to the letter, sort of, with the city
of Tombstone being little more than tents in the desert as it was in history, Cosmatos’ story takes
the classic conventions of the great Westerns, like “High Noon” and “The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly” and makes them a part of the historic fiction of the piece.

The movie pays homage to past Western films while at the same time being an exciting retelling of
the events leading up to the legendary gunfight at the O.K. Corral and Earp’s crusade as a U.S.
Marshal to bring the bandits to justice. Earp, played by Kurt Russell in a raucous performance, and
his brothers move to Tombstone, Arizona to attempt a get rich quick lifestyle with their new brides.
He is also joined by his gambling buddy and tuberculosis-suffering friend, Doc Holliday, played by
Val Kilmer in arguably his greatest on screen performance.

At first, everything is going well for the Earps, but a local gang of ruffians called “the Cowboys” are
causing so much trouble, Earp’s brothers have had enough and become sheriffs to establish law
and order. A violent feud ensues between Earp and his siblings and the Cowboy gang.

Cosmatos doesn’t muck around here. “Tombstone” makes no attempt to tell you Earp’s life story.
It starts in the middle of the action as the family gets into town. Alfred Hitchcock once said that film
is life boiled down to the interesting parts, and Cosmatos has done just that. Although there are
dramatic character complications, such as Wyatt’s opium addicted wife, his obsession with another
woman played by Dana Delany and Doc’s relationship with his mistress, the center of the story is
an energized series of gunfights between the Earps and their enemies. Rarely have Western
gunfights been better filmed. Get ready for some serious ricocheting excitement.

“Tombstone” is a high-tension flick. The heavies, especially Michael Biehn’s Ringo and Powers
Boothe’s role as Curly Bill, are portrayed as brutally merciless and vicious right from the beginning,
with Ringo almost psychotic. There is no doubt these men are dangerous and to cross them will
come at a high price. Russell is the anchor of the movie, and an incredible job he does balancing
his leading man responsibilities as the lover Wyatt with his angry gunfighting Wyatt. His vengeful
passion in hunting these men down is disturbingly real and his brooding place in the film is
tempered only by Kilmer’s Doc Holliday, who provides ample comic relief while simultaneously
coming across as the most dangerous one of them all.

The story is set on a slow, satisfying burn as Earp is pushed around more and more by the
Cowboys. When he finally snaps, all hell breaks loose. The film reminds me a lot of the Jimmy
Stewart Western “Firecreek,” except with modern editing and camera trickery of course. One to
see and own, “Tombstone” is a quintessential modern Western.