In the half a century since westerns stopped being a preferred American film genre, filmmakers gave never quite tired of trying to bring it back. But modern westerns, from Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-winning Unforgiven to more recent ones like James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma or the Coen brothers’ remake of True Grit all have a post-modern, mournful, “lament for the death of the West” feel to them.
Which is fine and good and artful. But it makes you appreciate a movie like Tombstone — released 25 years ago on Christmas Day — all the movie for being an unapologetic, straightfoward western, featuring top-notch performances by Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, and a cast of dozens at its center.
Director George P. Cosmatos was best known for directing Rambo: First Blood, Part II before this movie, and he once again got an icon in his lead role. Kurt Russell plays Wyatt Earp with a furnace set to simmer until he gives it a kick and then it’s full-on inferno. There’s no holding back and no instinct towards decorum. Just hell riding with him.
Tombstone tells the story of Wyatt Earp in the years after his fame as a lawman, as he and his brothers Virgil (Sam Elliott) and Morgan (Bill Paxton) move out to the mining town of Tombstone in Arizona to make their fortune.
Unfortunately, the town is under the criminal thumb of the Cowboys gang, led by Curly Bill (Powers Boothe) and featuring sharpshooter Johnny Ringo (Michael Beihn). Soon enough, Wyatt’s old pal Doc Holliday (Kilmer) shows up in town, drunk but still capable of drawing his gun faster than anybody in the West.
The rest of the cast is pretty sprawling, and includes the likes of Billy Bob Thornton as a shifty poker dealer, Dane Delaney as Wyatt’s love interest, and Jason Priestley and Billy Zane in a subplot that leans as far into the direction of a gay love story without ever actually going there.
The pleasures of Tombstone are right there on the surface, though, and the movie does not make you strain to find them. Even the characters in the movie are impatient for the Earp brothers to face off against the Cowboys. What it takes to get Wyatt into the fight is the stuff of the first half of the movie. The second half is all about watching the gunfights play out.
While Kurt Russell and his glorious ‘stache are definitely the stars of the show, it’s probably Kilmer who gives the best performance. His boozy, flamboyant Doc Holliday is the closest the movie comes to post-modernism.
Holliday knows his legend precedes him and he plays with that notion a bunch on his road towards the ultimate face-off with Ringo. But Kilmer is so committed to being Doc in the moment that the movie never feels like it’s apologizing for itself. It’s easily one of Kilmer’s signature performances.
In the 25 years since Tombstone, no western has come close to the exuberance and enjoyment that it presents. It may very well be the last uncomplicated western. Which didn’t win it any awards back then, but it sure helped it endure as a classic.