 |
Wyatt Earp Streaming.
Movie Title: Wyatt Earp Wyatt Earp is available for streaming or downloading. |
Larger than life and with twice as many brothers, “Wyatt Earp” struts onto the DVD scene in a “Special Edition” that looks stunning but is less filling than one might have expected. This sprawling episodic tale begins with Wyatt as a child preparing to run away from home and join the Union army like his brothers Virgil and James. His father (Gene Hackman in a brief but powerful performance)catches him as he leaves and returns him back home. While Wyatt clearly yearns from the adventure he feels his brothers are experiencing, his father knows the truth about war and sets him straight.
Later, James and Virgil return home both exhausted and beat up from serving in the army. Their father has put on his traveling shoes and announces that the family will be moving West where there’s opportunity for a lawyer and rich land is ready to be farmed.
Wyatt after many trials and tribulations ends up out west as a lawman. He manages to interest his brothers in coming out to help clean up Dodge City as well. We also get the thunderous conflict at the OK Corral as part of the conclusion of the film and witness a wonderful performance by Dennis Quaid as Doc Holliday. While the narrative is a bit too episodic and flawed, the film manages to retain one’s interest throughout it’s 190 minute running time due to Costner’s unassuming portrayal as Wyatt. The real highlight, though, is Quaid as Doc capturing the fragile gunfighter as he fights the consumption that eats him alive.
With the long wait for “Wyatt Earp” to appear on DVD, one would have hoped to have a special edition with a commentary from director Lawrence Kasdan, star Costner and a look back at the film’s reception when it was first released a decade ago. Unfortunately, the Warner Special Edition sticks to the basics for the most part: we get the original 190 minute theatrical cut of the film (sans the extended scenes that were added to the video version); two documentaries one “new” one that includes vintage interviews and the other a 1994 TV special; “lifted scenes”, i.e., the footage included in the special video edition and the theatrical trailer.
Let’s stark with the good stuff first. The stunning anamorphic widescreen transfer finely does justice to Kasdan’s epic vision for this larger than life western biography. The remastered 5.1 sound captures just about every nuance from the original theatrical exhibition 10 years ago. Honestly, “Wyatt Earp” hasn’t sounded this good since it was first released in 1994.
The negatives are few but worth noting. The documentaries are pretty good although a bit too brief. Perhaps Kasdan preferred his original theatrical cut to the extended version. That could explain why these sequences show up on the second disc and aren’t integrated into the film. The lack of a commentary track is a big minus for the disc, though, as 1)Knowing how the film compared to the life of Earp would have been fascintating and 2) Kasdan’s plans while shooting the film and comments would have been welcome.
With the recent deluxe release of “Open Range”, I would have hoped for better from this release. On the other hand, great care was used in transferring this for DVD and the extras are roughly what “Unforgiven” received when it was re-released. Kudos to Warner for such a marvelous looking DVD although, again, more extras should have been included.
“Silverado” is one of the best westerns ever made, and “Wyatt Earp” is another worthy western by Lawrence Kasdan. The film is a big sprawling attempt to capture the whole of the iconic lawman’s life, from his boyhood just after the Civil war through the Tombstone years, and onward toward the Alaska gold-fields. “Wyatt Earp” is unusually ambitious in this regard for a Hollywood film, and attention to historical detail was wonderful. I loved Costner as Wyatt Earp: as an actor he is very much in the Gary Cooper mold; not overly expressive, and this is just the right note for a legendary lawman, & steely gunslinger. Dennis Quaid is a phenomenon as Doc Holiday: skinny and haggard, he looks tubercular (unlike the well fed Val Kilmer in the laughable “Tombstone.”) The photography is sumptuous, & the film score dramatic and memorable. I can even laud the make-up artists who made the 40 something Costner look believably youthful for his scenes as Wyatt Earp in his 20’s. Yes the movie is long, and a tighter hand could have prevailed during editing, but compared to the typical Hollywood schlock one sees, “Wyatt Earp” is well worth the hours you invest in viewing it. One of my favorite films of the last ten years. A great film in the western genre!
