Young Guns 2: Blaze Of Glory Year Of Release 1990 Director/s Geoff Murphy Producer/s James G Robinson, Paul Schiff, Irby Smith Writer/s John Fusco Cast Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, William Petersen, Christian Slater, Alan Ruck, Balthazar Getty… with James Coburn, RD Call, Scott Wilson and Viggo Mortensen Notes And Trivia William Petersen takes over the role of Pat Garrett from Patrick Wayne (who was a simple cameo in the first film), and Petersen’s role in the film is when he’s hired by James Coburn’s “John Chisum” to track down The Kid. Coburn himself played Pat Garrett in Peckinpah’s “Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid”. This film was also marred with injured actors… Getty was replaced by a body-double in a few scenes after he was injured falling from his horse and Diamond Phillips broke his arm too, causing the now famous knife fight scene between himself and Christian Slater. Jon Bon Jovi also has more to do with the film than just the soundtrack. He appears on screen as one of the prisoners in Bob Ollinger’s Pit. He’s the one who now only sits next to Sutherland and Phillips in one scene, but also gets hold of a gun during the breakout scene, but is killed before he can fire it. Bon Jovi was hired by Estevez after he wanted to use “Wanted Dead Or Alive” in the film… but Bon Jovi felt it wasn’t right for the film and actually wrote the now famous new track “Blaze Of Glory” that would fit the theme of the film. Blaze Of Glory was then used as a sub-title for the movie, reached #1 in the charts, and became the name Jon Bon Jovi’s debut solo album too. --- Synopsis: In 1950, an old man appears in front of an attorney and makes an amazing claim… that he’s Billy The Kid. The attorney is rightfully sceptical of the man’s assertions, as Billy The Kid was killed nearly 70 years before. So he asks for proof… … irritated, the old man starts to recount his life. Review: Now, picking apart Young Guns in my last review, amma do the same right here :) YG2 seems to have been influenced much more by the Dime Novels, hearsay, legends and make-believe of the 1800s and early 1900s… the movie does manage to follow history relatively closely, but huge artistic licence has been taken in many aspects of the film. Man of the characters we see are, like with the first film, fusions of lots of other people (probably to keep the cast sheet down like with YG). Alan Ruck’s character “Hendry William French” is a prime example, he’s a midge-modge of Henry Newton Brown and Big Jim French. There’s also huge changes in character fates. Many of the people we see die, didn’t… and some of those die in the way other real life people died. The whole film is like a crossing and merging of numerous factors and done simply for cinematic effect. Even more so than Young Guns. But boy does it work well… :D YG2 is a rip roaring fun ride of gunfights, ramped up humour, some tragedy and some genuinely exciting cinematic chases and scenery. The idea of having “Legend” drive the story, backed up by fact, rather than Young Guns’ Fact backed up by Legend, makes YG2 easier to “get into” and a hell of a lot more fun to watch. The major thing that makes a mark, is the higher production value of the film. The budget was near twice that of YG… and having more of the same casting choices, this time with some even bigger names, makes for a much more “eye friendly” film too. The dialogue also has some brilliant one-liners and better overall writing. I also loved the mythology of the beginning and end of the movie using Brushy Bill Roberts as a lynchpin for the entire film and then, leaving it up to the audience to make up their minds about “the truth”. The acting is on a par with YG too. Estevez, Sutherland and Phillips return from the first film, all giving the same performances. Sutherland this time round has to wrestle with his conscience more though as he has a Wife and child. Phillips is much more spiritual this time round too, and Estevez on occasion approaches the realms of an unlikeable Billy The Kid, with some of the lies and mind-games he plays with people he considers his pals. We do however have Balthazar Getty, Alan Ruck and Christian Slater backing up our original Heroes. Ruck as I said, is a modge of two people, but he carries it well and plays the background character nicely. Getty plays a character that was missing from Young Guns called Tom O’Folliard. In truth, the character should have been in the films from the very, very start as he and McCarty were best friends for a long time and fought against The House together, but this buddy-duo-dynamic was given to Siemaszko and Mulroney in the first film. O’Folliard has also been rewritten as 15 years old. In truth he was older the Billy. The relationship between he and McCarty is bang on though, and Getty has great chemistry with Estevez. Slater, plays Dave Rudabaugh, a new addition to the gang, which in truth is pretty close… and is bang on the money in writing and acting. Loud, naïve, happy to kill, happy to steal, full of himself and very charismatically played by Slater. Best role in the film by a long, long way. Possibly Slater’s best role ever tbh. William Petersen plays our Sheriff Pat Garrett. Nicely, we see a history to the character, a roots almost, even though it is totally based in fiction. Garrett and McCarty did know each other, but not the way the film would suggest, but the build up makes for a character we can understand. Petersen is as always, on top form. His chemistry with Jack Kehoe who plays Ash Upton while the two are writing Garrett’s autobiography is also tops. Back up comes from James Coburn as Chisum and Viggo Mortensen as a “Poe”, a fictional character used to piss Garrett off on occasion. In a nod to fact though, we have Scott Wilson as Governor Lew Wallace and a meeting between him and McCarty. The action, choreography and photography have all been ramped up though for this one. The bigger budget has allowed for louder guns, bigger scope and simply a better “looking” movie this time around. The film isn’t The Quick And The Dead large, it’s held back in reality, but the larger scope for the action makes for a more exciting movie than the first one, even if there’s no real “end scene”. What I mean is, Young Guns had a watered down, but still exciting “Battle Of Lincoln” at the end… YG2, doesn’t have that sort of “big scene”… just a series of skirmishes and a bunch of horse chases that outweigh the skirmishes and chases seen in the first movie. The rock’n’roll Bon Jovi soundtrack mixed with a better written original soundtrack is a nice addition too and makes for some brilliantly exciting cinema. --- All in all, bigger and louder than the first film, much more fun and definitely funnier in places. Packed with one-liners and memorable scenes, but sadly feels like the filmmakers lost their way when keeping closer to fact like with YG. Still though, it’s up there with the best of the Western genre and reeks of style, huge, huge charisma and has at least some substance behind it too. A good follow up though? It’s disparate, but yeah, it’s good. My Rating: 84%
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 22:39:29 +0000
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