New Mexico Territory, 1880. Rio Cutler and his older sister Sara must abandon their home after an unfortunate event happens. In their desperate flee to Santa Fe, they cross paths with the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid and his gang, who are ruthlessly pursued by a posse led by Sheriff Pat Garret.
I thought this was a fairly entertaining western. Hardly a classic, but better than many I have seen. It seems like they accurately followed some of the sequence of interactions between Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett, from what I have read. I mean, it is a feature film, not a documentary.
I will say that I think they tried to shoehorn the kid (the child, =as opposed to The Kid) a bit too much into the orbit of William Bonney. And some of his actions seem too old for the age he is portrayed as being. Maybe they should have made him a teenager and be done with it. Also, a few people referred to the young co-star as the Kid, so we had two "the kid"s. And I think his two voiceovers were unnecessary distractions.
I can't see myself watching this again anytime soon, but there was enough depth to it so I don't regret the time spent watching it.
There are a LOT of ways that this has been handled by Hollywood over the years. Pat the good guy, Pat the friend of Billy, Billy the good guy, Billy really lived. Most of the time, not matter what path it takes, there is an element of fun and a really decent story behind it.
This one a great cast, it takes a great story and it kind of sucks all the drama out of it. It makes it all a bit flat and, honestly, it should be thrilling. I'm not sure what went wrong here.
It's watchable...but it's not good. It's a flat an unambitious telling of the Billy the Kid story and done with all the creativity as a paint by numbers.
