A journalist meets an old man out by the side of a road in the desert. The man tells him that he is Billy the Kid and that he wants his pardon. To prove that he is who he says he is, Billy tells the true story of his interaction with Pat Garrett. As a young man, Billy is tricked into giving himself over to the authorities before escaping with his old gang. However one of the gang, Pat, leaves to settle down before accepting a generous offer to become a sheriff and hunt Billy down.
Looking back on it now, a sequel to Young Guns seems all very unnecessary in fact it may even have been unnecessary at the time of release, I can't remember. This film uses a flashback approach to set up the main action, but manages to take away any drama out of whether or not Billy lives or dies (slightly messing up a well known story at the same time!). The telling of this version is quite slow at times but does have the odd touch of humour. The shoot outs only served to remind me of better westerns with similar situations.
Much of the film's flaws come from it taking itself far too seriously, it should have been more fun but instead it is rather heavy and full of grandiose at times. Death scenes are overdone and overlong and the film itself could easily been edited tighter to be a much faster paced and enjoyable animal. The cast have a hand in this over-seriousness too, they play their characters without spark on the whole. Only Slater seems to be having fun, the rest think they are doing a worthy piece of cinema as opposed to a brat-pack sequel!
Estevez is an average leading man here, but is worse when wearing the old makeup and speaking in a comedy croaky voice! Sutherland and Phillips both play it too seriously. Some big talent is wastes here as well; Petersen is good as Pat, in fact I'd say that he gives a better performance than the rest of the film deserves. Coburn is given an amusing cameo given that he played the most famous Pat Garrett (in my opinion), but he has nothing to really do other than show his face as an appropriate cameo. Other well known faces include Mortensen and Walter.
The film lifts from the genre heavily and in the end it feels like a rather heavy retread of better movies. The material is too heavy and it is not as much fun as I expected it to be. The fact that it twists a famous legend is a problem for me and this type of film is not the place to try and do a serious rewrite of history the montage conclusion is silly and the subtitles again reveal it to be taking itself all to seriously. It's an average film that is OK to watch but it really should have been more enjoyable than this.
Tingnan pa 
