WYATT EARP’S REVENGE

US, 2012, 93 minutes, Colour.
Val Kilmer, Shawn Roberts, Daniel Booko.
Directed by Michael Feifer.

This is another Wyatt Earp story. He has been popular in many films for many decades and has been played by such actors as Henry Fonda, James Garner, Kurt Russell, Kevin Costner. He was played by James Stewart in Cheyenne Autumn.

This time we see the younger and the older Earp. He is played by Shawn Roberts in the 1870s story, where Earp’s love, a singer, is accidentally killed. He and his friends including Bat Masterson, go in pursuit of the killer, a particularly sinister gunslinger played by Daniel Booko. We see him killing two men in cold blood as well as the death of the actress. He takes refuge with his brother, asking his father for help, leading to shootouts between the family and the lawmen.
However, the film is also set in 1908 in San Francisco when Wyatt Earp travels to give an interview to a journalist. At some point in the film, we realise that the journalist is the young boy whose father was brutally killed by Spike Kennedy.

Earp is played by Val Kilmer, who played Doc Holliday to Kurt Russell’s Earp in Tombstone.

1. The popularity of Wyatt Earp stories? law and order in the 1870s in the west? The role of outlaws and gunslingers? Revenge themes?

2. The film made for video release? The mixed responses? Some see it as an interesting western, others as poor.

3. The structure of the film: the opening with the murder, Wyatt Earp in San Francisco, 1908, prepared to give the interview? The interspersing of the interview with flashbacks?

4. Location photography, the town of Tombstone, the other towns, the countryside, ranches? Musical score?

5. The focus on Wyatt Earp, the young man in the west, his official status, keeping law and order, the local authorities in Tombstone, Bat Masterson and his friends, helping him with his role? In the town, his love for the actress, her being on tour, their talk, the time together, the possibility of marriage? Her performances? Her talking with her friend? Her being shot with the ricocheting bullet? The effect on Earp? His tracking Spike Kennedy? The marshal and his forbidding him? Earp handing in his badge, Masterson and the other friends? Going on the trek on their own authority? The promise to bring the criminals back in three days?

6. Spike Kennedy, young and reckless, brutal, his encounter with the man, the number between one and ten, killing him? The killings in Tombstone, the death of the actress? His escape, alone, the encounter with the farm people, the wife’s suspicions, the farmer’s friendliness, the little boy, the hospitality of the meal, the room? The rape of the wife? Teaching the boy to shoot? The farmer and his taking him to the border, the number between one and ten, shooting him? A conscienceless man?

7. Spike, teaming up with his brother, the other shooters in the town? People afraid of them? Going to their father, his disowning of them, yet helping them to escape because they were his sons? Their mother?

8. The pursuit, the bonds between Earp, Masterson and the others? The native American? Going to the town, the shootings, being wounded? Tracking the Kennedys?

9. The realism of the shootouts, not every bullet being successful, the wounding of Sam, the treatment, his being used as bait for his brother?

10. The shootout with the father, the various wounds, bringing Spike back to tombstone? Sam wounded and going to the dentist and his macabre getting the bullet out? The revelation that he was Doc Holiday? Handing Spike over to the authorities’? Their badges being given back?

11. The journalist coming to see Earp, listening attentively, noting things down? When did the audience suspect that he was the young boy from the farm? The revelation? His grudge against Earp for three decades? Discovering the truth, Earp supporting his mother with finance? The journalist’s apology?

12. The film showing life in the west in the 1870s, the retrospect by the beginning of the 20th century?