A meandering love letter

More often the question is “Tombstone” or “Wyatt Earp?” when it should really be is Wyatt Earp such a polarizing, iconic figure that he warrants a three hour film like Gandhi or Malcolm X? Cause it feels like a “no”. “Tombstone” seemed to understand this and went the comic book route, taking the best part of the Earp legend and stuffing it full of entertaining set pieces and hammy performances. “Wyatt Earp” on the other hand is as earnest as they come. Made by Kevin Costner and his “Silverado” director Lawrence Kasdan, the film plays like a three hour love letter that only a true Western trivia hound could admire.


It’s one of those from (almost) cradle to the grave bio-pics, beginning with him as a farmboy before the family heads West to California where the land is untamed but the people are vicious. His father (Gene Hackman, in a couple scenes only) is on hand every time he needs a lesson- “nothing is more important than blood”, “always hit to kill”- and the kid then goes on to being a wagon driver, fighter, lover, and eventually gunslinger.


But for fans you also get a deeper cut into his personal life. He wasn’t so much a ladies man as a shy, good-hearted kid willing to do anything for his first love (Annabeth Gish). No sooner does he marry and profess his undying love for her when she gets typhoid and dies, sending him into a spiral of drunkenness for a couple years that leaves a cold, hard shell around him. He believes he’ll never love again.


The way he became a deputy is also too good a story not to show in its entirety and even this stodgy production isn’t above seeing how humorous it is. Before long Wyatt and his brothers Virgil, James, and Morgan, plus the Mastersons (Ed and Bart) have set up shop in Dodge City as lawmen, before heading out to Tombstone to be businessmen there.


The brothers are a tight knit group, something this film tells us but that I felt was really conveyed better in “Tombstone”. Actually the people who come into better focus in this film are the wives, who are far more hateful and fed up with Wyatt than “Tombstone” led us to believe. That the brothers must follow him everywhere he goes becomes a point of major consternation for them all.


And speaking of wives, Wyatt’s own second wife, the one that Wyatt seemed so apathetic about in “Tombstone”, is shaded in a bit more here by a moving performance by Mare Winningham. This movie makes it seem like she tried much harder to love him than “Tombstone” did, which makes it all the sadder when he seemed to spurn her for the Vaudeville actress (Joanna Going) he would spend the rest of his life with.


And I don’t think Dennis Quaid should be discounted either, proving once again here that the character who is the most fun to play in the Earp universe is Doc Holliday. Spitting in the face of his own failing health and anyone else who might get in his way, the character is proudly vice-riddled, feisty, and ready for any and all action. That, plus his sage advice, makes Doc one of the best sidekicks of all time. Quaid, having lost 40 pounds to play the role, makes the man his own.


If the character feels like more of a second fiddle in this film, it’s because nearly every other character does as well. This is the Costner show, where everyone else feels scarcely developed. That hurts it somewhat, especially when the film gets to Tombstone. Not only does much of it feel like Deja Vu, but the villains and other supporting characters never have any real presence. The third act is just an exhaustive recreation without much real improvement.


Meanwhile, Costner comes across as the most earnest, a bashful, noble soul who tries to do right by women and who isn’t shy when someone needs killing. He has that gruff toughness to carry it but it also feels like Costner and Kasdan have too much admiration to portray him as anything other than noble.


That even the main character feels bland is the death nail to this three hour flick. It’s one of those movies that in trying to get to everything is more concerned with deifying its subject than defining him. You can definitely feel that love and admiration from both Costner and Kasdan but that’s what greeting cards are for. 3 hours devoted to it just comes off as slow, meandering, rambling, and not very compelling.