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Young Guns
R1 - America - Artisan Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (23rd May 2004). |
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The Film
 I never saw Young Guns in the theatres during its release in 1988, I caught this film on TV a few years later and loved every minute of it. It was a western with a modern twist to it. It could almost be described as a rock 'n' roll western. The film tells the story of John Tunstall's (Terence Stamp) group of regulators, who are hired outlaws that work his ranch and look after his property and "regulate" his belongings against his competitor Lawrence G. Murphy (Jack Palance) and his Santa Fe Ring. The Regulators are made up of six young men William H. Bonney AKA Billy The Kid (Emilio Estevez), Doc Scurlock (Kiefer Sutherland), Chavez y Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips), Dick Brewer (Charlie Sheen), Dirty Steve Stephens (Dermot Mulroney) and Charley Bowdre (Casey Siemaszko). Murphy an all around evil businessman wants to keep his monopolisation stranglehold of the beef market in New Mexico decides to eliminate the competition by murdering John Tunstall with the aid of his Santa Fe Ring that includes the sheriff. Witnessing the murder, the regulators swear revenge. They get deputised to bring the men who committed the murder to justice but instead go on a killing spree until every man of the Santa Fe Ring are dead. The news hits the governor of the regulator's actions and revokes their deputy status. Now they are on the run from the not only Murphy's men but also the law! This film is one of my favourite guilty pleasures and I will admit I owned the original standard release, I like this film so much I decided to double dip and get this new SE that Artisan have put out. Now I like most of the SE's that Artisan have release (T2, Reservoir Dogs, Rambo Trilogy to name a few), but I dislike their strategy. I have double and sometimes triple dipped almost always at the hand of Artisan. They are notorious for re-issuing disc after disc. I should be angry but I can forgive Artisan, mainly because their prices are so sweet. Young Guns SE cost me under $10 US dollars, now if most SE releases cost that I'd happily double dip without leaving a sour taste in my mouth. But in saying that, I hope that this is the last Young Guns DVD we see (until the next format comes out anyway). All that said and done Young Guns is a nice piece of brainless popcorn entertainment. The key here is to have fun and not take it seriously because there are a lot of historical inaccuracies in this film (the 80's haircuts, contemporary dialogue, and of course the soundtrack) but when you get past this you'll be in for an enjoyable 102 minute ride that will hopefully leave a smile on your face. So what makes this film so much fun? Well this can be attributed to the fresh way the director (Christopher Cain) looked at this film. He managed to take what was then a dead concept (the western) and revamp it with a hip young cast that resulted in a very stylish overall focus. Each actor compliments the other and makes for some funny banter and great moments like the scene when they get high on peyote. The appeal of the film also transcended the sexes as it appealed to both men and women, the guys got the sense of adventure, machismo and guns while the girls got Emilio, Charlie, Kiefer, etc, etc. this resulted in a successful run at the box office and a sequel in 1990 (which, is just as good if not better than the original).
Video
Presented in a ratio of 1.78:1 this anamorphically enhanced image is not as great as I would have liked it to be. Having owned the first release and being able to make a direct comparison apart from the 16:9 enhancement on the SE the differences aren't as great as I was expecting. Here are the pros and cons of the new transfer versus the old: PROS: - The new transfer is anamorphic - The image is slightly sharper than before - Colours are solid and bleed less than before - The edge enhancement and compression artifacting problems from the first transfer are nowhere to be seen on this transfer CONS: - There is still a considerable amount of grain present throughout the film - Although the colours are solid, flesh tones aren't always accurate there were moments where the flesh colours were verging on pink, sometimes even red! - Black levels are poorly defined, dark scenes lose almost all detail especially in the background Although this is not the best of transfers, it is certainly the best this film has looked on any home video format. If a better transfer is to be made then a full restoration is needed. But I'm not ready to fork over more money on this film just yet, maybe when HD-DVD or Blu-Ray hits the market though.
Audio
This DVD offers the film in three different audio flavours. First we have an English DTS 5.1 track, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 track (not listed on the case, but is certainly on the disc) and finally an English Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround track. For the purpose of this review I chose to view the film with it's English DTS track, I also watched the first 20 minutes with the 2.0 track just to compare it to the first release and I believe this is the same track recycled for this new SE. Now I was excited to find out that the sound was re-mastered into a DTS track, but my excitement was quickly put down, although this film has some great action set pieces the sound is mainly confined to the front with very little surround sound, separation is minimal. This minor quibble aside the DTS track presents the bullet sounds with a better punch than previous tracks and the LFE comes out deeper than before. What I was expecting was to be overwhelmed by the sound but what I got was just ok. This film also includes optional subtitles in Spanish and also is closed captioned in English.
Extras
Artisan has provided us with a few extras, but nothing to warrant a Special Edition banner in my opinion. However what we get is better than nothing. The first extra is a commentary, followed by a trivia track, a Billy the Kid documentary, the films trailer, a handful of bonus trailers and a booklet. The audio commentary includes actors Loud Diamond Phillips, Dermot Mulroney and Casey Siemasko who have gotten together for a bit of a reunion. This a fairly good track the three talk about their characters and provide some nice stories about working on this film, you get the general idea that these guys had a great time making this film and came away with good memories of the experience. What also caught me was that they spoke of some deleted scenes that are not on the DVD! Although the track is great there was the occasional silence and why wasn't director Christopher Cain involved? Apart from these two issues this is an overall enjoyable track to listen to. Next we have the "Gunning for the Facts" this is a trivia track that pops-up production notes, historical facts, cast and crew information among other facts throughout the film. This is quite a nice feature to have, especially for a film that was loosely based on true events. Next we have a fairly in-depth documentary about the real Billy the Kid, which is funnily enough entitled "The Real Billy the Kid". This 30-minute documentary chronicles the life of the Kid until his death at the young age of 21. While this documentary is not directly related to the making of the film at all, this is a nice extra that gives the viewer some background information on one of the most infamous of the main characters in Young Guns. Rounding out the extras is the film's trailer, plus four bonus trailers for "Dune" (the mini-series), "Rambo", "Reservoir Dogs" and "Total Recall" all the bonus trailers are actually for the DVD releases except the one for Total Recall. Finally you also get an 8-page booklet with a note by Casey Siemasko, some notes on the extras and chapter listings. While the extras are nice they still leave a little to be desired, a documentary on the making of the film as well as the deleted scenes talked about in the commentary would have made a welcomed addition to this release.
Packaging
The DVD is packaged in an amaray case that is housed in a handsome cardboard slipcase.
Overall
An entertaining rock 'n' roll western that has some nice performances that has appeal for both men and women (This would make a great date flick). Artisan have done an average job with this re-issue, while the transfer could have used some more work it's better than anything I've seen to date. The sound is just fine but also could have been better as are the extras. This is a A-calibre film that's been given a slightly underachieving release.
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