A friend at work recently watched a film and since doing so
has been repeating the phrase “I have two guns, one for each of you” over, and
over again in a terrible American accent. The film in question is Tombstone,
a 1993 Western starring Kurt Russell and office favourite Val ‘the chameleon’
Kilmer. It was lent to me recently by my quoting friend and I watched it this
evening. I’ll be honest early on. I’ve never had much time for Westerns and
rarely seek them out but I do enjoy a really good one. I also don’t
particularly enjoy Val Kilmer on screen (though don’t tell my colleagues). With
these facts in mind I wasn’t expecting to get much from Tombstone but I really enjoyed it, thanks largely to a fun, if
slightly formulaic script and a fantastic, over the top performance from Val
Kilmer.
Tombstone feels very much like a classic Western
and looks older than Unforgiven, the
Oscar winning movie which is younger by eighteen months. The premature aging
doesn’t work against the film but merely gives it a gravitas that I’d associate
with a classic Western of the late forties to mid sixties period. Even the plot
feels well trodden. Three brothers, one of whom is a former lawman (Kurt
Russell) relocate to Tombstone,
Arizona with their families in
the hope of earning their fortune. It soon becomes clear that the local law is
defenceless against a large gang of outlaws who call themselves The Cowboys.
Slowly the brothers and their friend Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer) begin to rid Tombstone of the gang but
at a high cost of human life.
