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51 out of 64 people found the following review useful:
A rich, haunting, yet demanding work..., 7 July 2000

Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico

Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" is a rich, haunting, yet demanding work that, above everything else, sees Billy as a creature of his day and age…

He is by no means made a wholly sympathetic character, but who was sympathetic in the New Mexico of 1881? Peckinpah has most of his characters dyed with violence and sniffing the prevailing air of corruption—the chief protagonists, their filthy henchmen, even the onlookers…

Where and what is the law? No one seems to know or care… Garrett and Billy have seen both sides, like almost everyone else…

And among the confusion and violence that is the legacy of range war there is no gleam of purifying light in the efforts we see being made to clean up the territory… The powers that be want Billy out of New Mexico, not for ethical reasons, but rather so that things can be neatly protected for the approaching business exploitation…

Garrett is the man made sheriff to hunt him down and thereby the man who compromises . . . 'This country's getting older and I aim to grow old with it ... there's an age in a man's life when he has to consider what's going to happen next.'

But Billy can't compromise… It's not his way… "Billy, they don't like you to be so free!" proclaims the Bob Dylan theme song, summing up why the power men find Billy so irritating… Perhaps that's why Garrett who has sold out to power is in some ways a reluctant hunter… He salutes Billy's spirit—his very own personal declaration of independence—but he knows it's not the spirit of the new times…

It says much for Peckinpah's way with actors that he gets such admirable performances out of the comparatively inexperienced Kris Kristofferson, as Billy, and Bob Dylan, as Billy's mate… It says just as much for his Westerns perceptiveness that he relies even more heavily on experience… The well-tried James Coburn is both solid and hard to define as Garrett… And then there are the others who know their way around Westerns so well—Katy Jurado, Slim Pickens, R. G. Armstrong, Jason Robards, Jack Elam, Chill Wills… There's not a single performance here that isn't a rounded-off portrait in its own right…

It all adds up to a richness in characterization that is matched by the richness of marvelously composed scenes in which interiors and exteriors alike have been put together with loving care and attention to detail, whether it's a big set-piece 'shoot-up' or a close-up of a can of preserves—how such a can looked in 1881…

Garrett's hunt for Billy is told mainly in set-pieces and it has to be said that Peckinpah makes little narrative concession to an audience in the way they are strung together… But for the out and out Western fan this is a most memorable movie…

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44 out of 54 people found the following review useful:
Peckinpah's final, haunting eulogy to the West and Westerns, 10 March 2005

Author: j_beaudine from Lake Park, Minnesota

Simply put, Sam Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" is one of the last great Westerns ever made. Like most of 'Bloody' Sam's films, "Pat Garrett" was molested and cut by the studio, MGM upon its release. The film would be panned by audiences and critics. It's a shame that Peckinpah never lived to see the longer cut of the film finally released to a wider audience on VHS. It would become a cult hit and is now known as one of the best Westerns and one of Peckinpah's best.

The film depicts the final days of Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson) before he was killed by his friend Pat Garrett (James Coburn), the newly appointed sheriff of the territory. Other than the fine performances of Coburn and Kristofferson, the film also features excellent supporting roles from famous Western regulars and members of Peckinpah's stock of actors. The long list of players include Jason Robards, Bob Dylan (also the film's music composer), Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong, L.Q. Jones, Katy Jurado, Paul Fix, Chill Wills, Jack Elam, Harry Dean Stanton, Richard Jaeckel, and Dub Taylor. Most of the characters are killed off in the film, violently evoking both the death of the West and Westerns.

Peckinpah's two regular themes are here: the death of the West, and men living past their time and deciding whether or not they should accept change. My favorite scene in the film takes place about halfway through the film. Pat Garrett, isolated and alone, is sitting by his fire near a river bank. He sees a man about his age and his family sailing on a raft down the river. The man is shooting bottles for target practice. Garrett takes a shot at a bottle. The man sees Garrett and shoots back. Garrett then takes cover behind the nearby tree. They both are aiming at each, but just lower their guns are stare at each other. The raft continues to flow down the river. The scene, which was the reason why Peckinpah, Coburn, and almost everyone wanted to take part in the film, has so much meaning to it. 1. It references an earlier scene with Garrett and Sheriff Baker (Slim Pickens). Baker was building a boat so he could drift out of territory because of how awful it has become. Tragicaly, Baker does not get a chance to see this dream. 2. The scene also references the shoot-out between Garrett and Black Harris (L.Q. Jones). Before his death, Harris yells to Garrett "Us old boys shouldn't be doing this to each other." The same thing happens between Garrrett and the man on the raft.

Other than the performances, the film also features some good musical pieces by Dylan. John Coquillon's cinematography is also very beautiful and haunting at the same time. Peckinpah, as always, was able to get period detail down correctly. Rudy Wurlitzer also did a fine job at the screenplay, despite Peckinpah improving most of it himself. Coburn's performance was possibly his best ever. The idea of Garrett having a lot of inner conflict was good. Garrett knew that he had a job to do, but just could not handle the fact it was his friend that he had to kill. Maybe he was the one who put the gun in the outhouse for Billy to use. It was also great to see the myth and actual facts of the last days of this incident played out.

Although this film may have a few faults (some of Dylan's music and a few of his scenes), "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" is really worth the time to view now that a DVD will be released on January 10th, 2006. The Two-Disc set will feature two versions of the film. The first one is a 115 min. version editied by Peckinpah biographers Nick Redman and Paul Seydor. The second disc will feature the 122 min. version assembled in 1988. According to both men, there was no final cut to "Pat Garrett." The version that Peckinpah screeded for the MGM heads was just a rough cut. Either way, the DVD will now a new generation of film lovers to be able to view how costly it is when an artist cannot complete his work. Peckinpah and editiors originally had six months to edit, but the idiots from the studio cut it down to two months. I guess the new 115 minute version of the film is closer to Peckinpah's vision because of notes and interviews with the filmmaker's colleagues. No matter which version you will watch, "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" is a sad but magnificent Western made by one of the last great storytellers of the Western genre.

Billy: Old Pat...Sheriff Pat Garrett. Sold out to the Sana Fe ring. How does it feel?

Pat: It feels like...that times have changed.

Billy: Times maybe. Not me.

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36 out of 50 people found the following review useful:
Sporadically brilliant., 15 May 2003
Author: Jonathon Dabell (barnaby.rudge@hotmail.co.uk) from Wakefield, England

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a unique western. Parts of it are just brilliant, other moments are bungled, but it is composed and structured like no other movie from the genre.

Everyone knows the western legend about these two central characters, who went from being friends to sworn adversaries. The leading performances of James Coburn (Garrett) and Kris Kristofferson (Billy) are rather colourless, but the subsidiary characters are beautifully delineated. There are some pretentious moments. For example, near the start Billy is arrested and as he makes his way towards the lawmen who have come to take him, he adopts a Christ-like pose which is presumably meant to signify that he was some kind of martyr among Wild West outlaws (when, in reality, he was probably just a psychopath).

However, there are stunning moments in the film too. In fact, the scene in which Slim Pickens stumbles, wounded and mortally bleeding, to a riverside so that he can die peacefully is arguably the most moving scene ever in a motion picture. The acting, the music and the photography fit together harmoniously to make this a truly magical cinematic moment.

One word of warning: beware of the incoherent, chopped-up 106 minute version of the film. If you're planning to watch it, go for the full 122 minute director's cut, which is immeasurably superior.

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28 out of 35 people found the following review useful:
The death of the Old West, 20 February 2000

Author: contronatura (contronatura@aol.com) from Los Angeles, CA

On the surface, a film about the doomed friendship between the two title characters, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is really a film about the death of a way of American life. Death is omni-present in this film, and the compelling aspect of it is that so many of the characters are completely prepared to accept it and deal it out. The best and saddest moments in the film involve characters who know they are going to die and accept it. And the performances are all remarkable. Kristofferson's easygoing and charismatic portrayal of Billy is the best work of his career, as is Coburn's sad-eyed interpretation of Pat Garrett. A wonderful film, almost as good as Peckinpah's masterpiece The Wild Bunch.

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25 out of 33 people found the following review useful:
One of the Best Westerns, 16 February 2005

Author: Nick Beaudine from Lake Park, MN

Especially the director's cut, this is one of the finest Westerns ever made. Yes, Bob Dylan didn't make the best soundtrack (with the exception with the beginning music and the river music), and the studio version lacks quality, this is Sam Peckinpah at his finest since "The Wild Bunch". Peckinaph is one of my all time favorite directors because most of his movies are great, and this one is no different. James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson in the title roles are excellent, especially the always great Coburn (R.I.P.). What is also great is most of the Peckinpah regulars and recognizable Western characters making a great support cast, including Chill Wills, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong, Matt Clark, Slim Pickens, Katy Jurado, Jack Elam, Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Fernandez, Richard Jaeckel, Barry Sullivan, Dub Taylor, Elisha Cook Jr., and John Beck. Even Peckinaph has a great cameo. Bob Dylan isn't the best actor, but his character plays an important part. He represents the story teller that passes down the legend of this story to all generations. This is a film that all Peckinpah and Western fans can't miss. It's a shame Sam never lived to make another Western like this.

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15 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
the film that Peckinpah set out to make, 12 March 2007

Author: (winner55) from United States

I finally got to see the recent DVD Special Edition, with what probably is the film that Peckinpah set out to make, or close to it. This is definitely not the film I saw in 1973; and, yes, it is much better. The restoration has emphasized the real beauty of much of the cinematography. And it is not only the restored 9 minutes that give the film added power, but a slight but important rearrangement of scenes that manages to convey the all-important development of Pat Garrett's character, which is the real heart of the film.

It must be noted that this was a career-defining moment for James Coburn as Pat Garrett. Garrett, a former outlaw getting on the "right side" of the law in order to "live to be old and rich", is a problematic personality: he wants to be noble, but he's too scared of aging; he sets his old colleagues against each other, leading to the deaths of many of them - he becomes an angel of death for the Old West itself, yet (unlike, say, George Steven's Shane) he doesn't represent any civilizing force to replace it with. He can't admit any of this to himself, but he can't avoid it.

Consequently, by accepting the role, Coburn accepted an opportunity to set aside his most famous incarnation as the goofy hipster of such films as "President's Analyst" and "Our Man Flint", and to pursue a path closed off with the lost opportunity in Leone's rugged but incomplete "Duck, You Sucker", to play a complex, brooding and violent man haunted by an unforgiving past. Coburn's performance, at once quiet and strong, as complex as the character demands, really makes this film; and that it is Garrett's film, not Billy's, is now clear.

Are there weaknesses to the film? Yes. The historic background to the main story is lost; this being Garrett's film, we don't really need as much of Billy as we get from the film; finally, there are moments of self-indulgence on Peckinpah's part that are distracting and unnecessary.

Peckinpah uses the film to rid himself of one of his supposed influences: the fourth major scene in the film is a remake of a scene toward's the end of Arthur Penn's "Left-Handed Gun" - by bringing it to the fore, Peckinpah is obviously getting it out of the way as quickly as possible. (Penn, not the Peckinpah of "The Wild Bunch", was the director who introduced the notion of a gunfight ending in a "bullet ballet" in "Bonnie and Clyde" - a fact some critics of the early '70s used to insist that "Wild Bunch" was somehow derivative of that film.) However, as the film goes on, a new influence shows up, and in spades - Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time In the West". From Coburn's dressing in black and smoking a cigar when he firsts captures Billy, to the moment when Garrett and two colleagues approach the house where Billy's staying at the end, Leone's visuals and themes rise to the taste like hot-sauce in a bowl of chili.

Peckinpah's film is not really derivative - after all, Peckinpah's West is not that of Leone - Peckinpah's West is rich in color, and surprisingly green; trees don't make any appearance at all in Leone's deserted Monument Valley (and it's Spanish equivalent)location photography; in Peckinpah's West they play a substantial role as reminders of an ever-young nature infested with aging gunmen.

Yet the fact that Peckinpah and his crew felt a need to find a reference point in Leone's film hints at the source of weakness in this film, a lack of unifying vision. Although I don't agree that the story is so episodic that its inherent power is lost, there's no denying a lack of clarity at times.

Having said all this, I still insist that this is a really good film, and a really fine end-of-an-era farewell to the American "Old West" - or rather, to it's legend - the West never was "shoot-outs on main-street" or anything like that. The reason why directors like Peckinpah and Leone made such films as this was that they and their audiences were at last waking up to that fact, that what they learned as legends were little more than historical anomalies. Yes, there really was a "Billy the Kid" - and he had no more historic importance than the average gangsta on the streets of East L.A. has today.

Nonetheless, the biographical evidence is that Peckinpah at one time believed in the myth, and certainly preferred it to the reality. It is therefore a sign of courage and artistic integrity that he chose to make films about the end of the myth, rather than glorifying it. Neither Garrett nor the Kid are really very admirable in this film; if the film feels "distant" - and it does - this is because there is no moral center to the film - and, as it happens, that was true of the real West of the 19th century as well - it was just empty space, scenery, and some misfits of various backgrounds trying to find some ways to make a living in an as-yet inhospitable domain.

It is as yet unclear whether they succeeded; certainly films like this suggest they didn't.

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22 out of 33 people found the following review useful:
One of Peckinpah's Finest, 7 August 1999
Author: Andyh74 from Herndon, VA

I enjoyed the film very much, in part because Peckinpah continues his theme, as he did in "Ballad of Cable Hogue" and "The Wild Bunch", of the illusion of who is "good" and who is "evil." Also, Peckinpah mourns the passing of people such as Garrett and Billy; at one point Garrett says to Poe, "This country's getting old, and I'm to get old with it." Garrett knows that he and Billy, among others, are to disappear from the West as big business and civilization advance, and Garrett tries to avoid this by selling out to Chisum (Barry Sullivan) and the Santa Fe Ring. But Garrett is a torn man; he is trying to avoid the tide of history by avoiding the eventual meeting with Billy, while also trying to avoid the financial forces (e.g., Chisum) that are making individuals such as himself disappear, so that big business will take over. The entire film is really a depiction of Garrett and Billy avoiding each other in order to resist historical forces that they would have a better chance of surviving if both of them left New Mexico or if both of them were on the same side. However, Garrett feels that aligning himself with the ranchers is better for survival, but in the end the hand that fed him, so to speak, is the same hand that destroys him. A truly poetic, and quite elegiac film, one that I feel is underrated among Peckinpah's films.

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20 out of 30 people found the following review useful:
One of the best contemporary westerns made, 16 March 2002
Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK

Opening with the gunning down of Pat Garrett in 1909, we flash back to 1881 where Garrett has been hired to bring his ex-partner in crime Billy the Kid to justice. The story unfolds against a backdrop of a west that is moving forward, driven by businessmen (represented by Chisum) leaving behind the 'old ways'.

Of modern (ie after 50's and 60's) westerns Once Upon a Time in the West stands out as the best. However I feel that this film covers similar themes, of the death of the cowboy way and passing of times. The story is not really a duel between Pat and Billy but more a look at times changing around them – with Garrett changing with them and Billy trying to remain still. The story is well told with plenty of good characters, great setups and interesting dialogue. The relationships and the look at the old west 'code' easily hold the interest.

Peckinpah does plenty of good work here – for example intercutting the killing of Garrett with the killing of chickens etc, making it visually clever too. However his best move is the use of Bob Dylan's score – it could have been intrusive and made the film feel tacky and like it tries too hard to be hip. Instead the score works well and gives the film a soulful feel.

The cast is not only superb but deep with talent. Coburn is as good as ever as Garrett, struggling to move with times he doesn't approve of. Kristofferson is good, but his character of Billy is not well developed, but he still has a strong role to play. The support cast is full of famous faces from Westerns and a few actors just starting out – slim Pickens, Chill Wills, Jack Elam, Luke Ashew, Charles Martin Smith, Harry Dean Stanton and a good part for Bob Dylan.

If you're watching it – make sure you've got the restored version that adds 15 minutes and uses the score better. The director's version makes more of the role of Boss Chisum and fills the story out with playful brothel scenes and delivers a few more cameos. It makes a big difference to the film and lifts the story above being Garrett versus Billy the Kid.

Overall an excellent western from one of the greats at this type of thing.

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15 out of 23 people found the following review useful:
Lonely Messenger, 26 April 2008
Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach

As with some lives, there's the sacrifice of waste for value.

This is a failure of a movie. It is incoherent, especially in the sense it was originally intended to deliver: as a member of the friend turned hunter genre. It has KristofFerson more inappropriately cast than usual. Its designated watcher Bob Dylan, was ineffective. It lacks any of the binding features of a long form work.

This is a success of a movie. It is broken in just the same way its characters are. Their lives make no sense other than as a container for confidence. This is am aimlessly wandering film about aimlessly wandering souls and the minor folks the collect in different ways. It sags in places because you can see that there is no purpose. But it has moments of such pure brilliance that you have to wonder about the miracle of Zen acceptance. The photography, any scene with Coburn and the score are in such harmony they seem to have been created together all the way from the edge of time.

The really vexing thing is Dylan. This was during one of his creative valleys, and probably his worst period. The music is meditative but hardly sharp. Its aimless and pastel. He looks dull. Supposedly this was during a heroin addiction and his association with great musicians that were lost (like George Harrison). He by himself in his better days could have snapped this film into importance merely by actually watching, by being in it truly. He's not there.

Some of the episodes you will never forget. I count three small masterpieces. One lasts less than 60 seconds and involves a family floating down a small river. Coburn and the apparently mad father point rifles at each other and then in apparent recognition of the other's meanness, put them down, while children expectantly cower.

A second is the much mentioned sequence where a sheriff has been enlisted against his will. His tough wife accompanies, an angry killing machine. But he is mortally wounded and as he stumbles to the river to gently die, she follows in an astonished grief. Dylan sings Knocking on Heavens's Door — apparently removed from one cut. Its a whole life together shown.

The third is muffed before its over. Billy and his woman in that town are making love right before his demise. Pat sits outside listening, passion drained from his life. You should be able to see that this is why he wants to kill Billy — but you cannot because of how it is cut. But before that you see Billy and Maria make love and it is clear that though both are poor actors, they really are deeply in love. Its deep, knowing we are watching too, watching because we seek passion.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

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8 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
a laconic, sometimes-great take on iconic Western figures, 11 April 2007

Author: MisterWhiplash from United States

Sam Peckinpah really is not the full problem or liability with Pat Garret & Billy the Kid, though he's not totally innocent in what shortcomings come with the film. The story by Rudy Wurlizter provides a mix of extraordinary scenes and some all-too laid-back ones or scenes that don't feel like there is any real dramatic pull or total interest in the dialog. The other great scenes, which make up the most memorable bits of the film, provide Peckinpah with enough to put his distinctive visual style and subversive approach to character dynamics and conventions of the Western genre, but the parts end up becoming greater than the whole. The version I saw, the 2005 cut, doesn't seem like it would do any more or less better with fine tuning, and it does feel like a Peckinpah movie more often than not. The story is simple, and has been told more times than one could try to count unless in historical context of the genre: Billy the Kid is a murderous criminal out on the lam, and Pat Garret, the sheriff, is out to get him by hook or by crook. The twist that Peckinpah provides at the core is that it's not a completely intense thriller with a lot of chases, but more of a journey where the two men- who before becoming Dead-or-Alive Wanted-man and newly appointed Sheriff were sort of on friendly terms (as first scene shows well and clear)- are not in a big rush to meet their fates, even if the whole experience is starting to make things all the more embittered.

Pat Garret & Billy the Kid does provide, at the very least, some very great scenes throughout- some of the best I've seen in any Peckinpah film- and is a reminder of why the director was an important figure, and remains as such, in American cinema. Scenes like the river-side bit where Pat Garret shoots at the same bottle floating in the river as the guy with his family on the river-raft does; the astoundingly dead-pan shooting scene between Billy (Kris Kristofferson) and Alamosa (Jack Elam) where they sit down for a peaceful meal and go to it without much of a fuss in front of Alamosa's family; the scene with Garret getting the man to drink in the bar too much as Alias (Bob Dylan) reads off the products on the other side of the room in order to shoot him down; the scenes (in the 2005 cut that seem fairly important) showing Garret and his attitude towards women, either with his wife or with the prostitutes. It's a shame then that after the first twenty minutes or so, which includes that unforgettable shoot-out (one of the best in Peckinpah's Westerns) as Garret first corners Billy at the hide-out and drags him off to a not-quite jail before his escape, it then goes sort of up and down in full interest.

It's not that I wouldn't recommend Pat Garret & Billy the Kid, far from it, and especially for fans of the genre looking for a grim turn of the screws on one of those old-time mythic Western stories. The only main issue is that, in an odd way, the other side of the coin that Peckinpah and his writer are working with here- subversion- has the side of almost being too at ease with itself, of being too comfortable just rolling along. This might be in part due to the leads themselves; Coburn, to be sure, is a pro as always and is especially good in the almost anti-climax at the Fort, but Kristofferson is not very well-rounded, and comes off as being sort of all grins and smiles when he should be living up a little more to his reputation. It's so against-the-grain of the old-west that it comes close (though it doesn't, contrary to what Ebert said in his review) to being dull. Luckily, Peckinpah never lets it get too uninteresting, and there's always something to look forward to, like the touching, actually poetic final scene with Slim Pickens, and seeing the likes of Stanton, Elam and Robards in various roles.

Dylan, on the other hand, is sort of a double-edged sword here. The music that he provides for the film, which includes guitar segways, lyricism and some classic songs (with 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door' just the right effect when used), is one of the very best things about the movie. But his presence as "Alias" is not as good. He seems to be there more for the sake of being in a Western, or a Peckinpah movie, and taking aside his shtick about feeling like he was a character here in a previous life or whatever, he's almost a non-entity, and alongside the seasoned character actors and old pros at doing this it doesn't feel quite right. This being said, he's not too much of a deterrent, and it's great having the music put to scenes that wouldn't be the same without it all. And, of course, it's Peckinpah all the way, with the men in a sort of damned state of affairs, knowing deep down that the chosen paths are not very easily traveled, and always surrounded by the most distinct, brutal and realistic violence possible. It's the kind of Western I probably wouldn't pass up if it came on TV and I had a good shot of whiskey, though it doesn't reach the level of practical perfection like the Wild Bunch.

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