Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid DVD Report

A former friend betrays a legendary outlaw in Sam Peckinpahs final Western Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. Holed up in Fort Sumner with his gang between cattle rustlings, Billy the Kid ignores the advice of comrade-turned-lawman Pat Garrett to escape to Mexico, and he winds up in jail in Lincoln, New Mexico. After Billy theatrically escapes, inspiring enigmatic Lincoln resident Alias to join him, the governor and cattle baron Chisum requisition Garrett to form a posse and hunt him down. Rather than flee to Mexico when he can, Billy heads back to Fort Sumner, meeting his final destiny at the hands of his friend Pat, who, two decades later, is forced to face the consequences of his own Faustian pact with progress.

With a script by Rudolph Wurlitzer, Peckinpah uses the historical basis of Billys death to eulogize the West dreamily yet violently as it is desecrated by corrupt capitalists. Both Pat and Billy know that their time is passing, as surely as Garretts posse knows that they are participating in a legend. Peckinpah underscores the West's existence as a media myth, and he even appears himself as a coffin maker!

This is a fantastic movie, I've seen it a few times, and tonight it was time to play it again! With a fantastic cast; James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan, Slim Pickens, Harry Dean Stanton, and Rita Coolidge to name a few, how can it go wrong? The speed of the movie it great, its never in a hurry, with Bob Dylans soundtrack making the movie sound even more relaxed. I'll watch it again and again! I have one question though, just who put the pistol in the toilet for Billy to find? That seems to remain unexplained!

Here is the trailer...