Wild Bill
I can appreciate what director Walter Hill was attempting with 1995's WILD BILL - a thoughtful elegy as seen mostly through its highly colorful subject's eyes. Rather than mounting a straightforward bio pic, Hill periodically uses surreal, dissonant flashbacks and dream sequences to highlight the exploits of James Butler Hickok, better known as "Wild Bill", a folk hero who was quick with the trigger regardless of which side of the law he happened to be on at the moment. The recollections are filmed in a washed out, underexposed style that suggest the events are unreliably remembered, fictitious, or at least highly exaggerated.
Hickok (Jeff Bridges) assumed numerous roles in his thirty-nine years: stagecoach driver, gambler, lawman. He even tried his hand at acting on stage (none too successfully) with Buffalo Bill Cody (Keith Carradine), another known for his boasting and considerable legendry. Will Bill shot and drank his way across the West in the mid nineteenth century with barely a raised muscle or eyebrow. His only emotion displayed in Hill's movie comes when he accidentally kills one of his deputies, reducing him to tears in the middle of a street. Otherwise, Hickok leaves a trail of corpses and enemies without remorse, though he begins to get mildly concerned about this vengeful kid named Jack McCall (David Arquette) who tracks him down in the dreary Dakota Territory town of Deadwood.
It seems Bill abandoned Jack's mother Susannah (Diane Lane), then returned to kill her new beau, only to abandon her again. Jack is excitable and anxious to drill lead, but suffers his nerve when opportunities arise, even as Bill lies impaired in the town's opium den. It is there that Bill dreams of his treacherous past encounters with Indians and other hostiles. Other times, he recalls showdowns and various scrapes with the many he's wronged, and/or those who dared touched his hat; there's a sure death sentence, partner.
Bill, rapidly suffering failing eyesight, is also shown trading rough words with his on again/off again, none other than Calamity Jane (a feisty Ellen Barkin). They have quite a history. By the time he reaches Deadwood, prurient thoughts have largely abandoned him, even as they share a hot tub. When he does try to have an assignation with her on a barroom table, he's interrupted by a damned posse.
WILD BILL, based by Hill on Pete Dexter's novel Deadwood and Thomas Babe's play Fathers and Sons, moves through these interesting events in an only mildly interesting manner. The director ramps down the energy level as he fancies this film a sort of dirge, a slow crawl to that moment when McCall finally cocked the hammer. All those flashbacks give the movie an almost otherworldly feel, though also an uncertain, somewhat confused tone. It's the story of a man reconciling the scores of ghosts in his life, knowing that death is imminent. Many historical figures traversed the Old West with such thoughts, and Bridges does a fine job of playing Bill with weariness and cockiness. John Hurt (who narrates) and James Gammon as his compadres Charley Prince and California Joe are quite good, too. Unfortunately, Christina Applegate is wasted as a prostitute, a role that is completely unnecessary to the story. Her entrance does allow her to shoot a would be suitor in the ear.
For all of WILD BILL's ambitions, this is a curiously flat, forgettable movie that doesn't have the emotional or intellectual weight it seeks.
Comments