Sam Peckinpah's film about Sheriff Pat Garrett (James Coburn) trying to bring in his old friend, Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson.)
Except Garrett takes his sweet time after Billy initially escapes custody. As Billy first gradually makes his way towards Mexico, then changes his mind and heads back to old haunts, Garrett, I don't know what Garrett's doing. Maybe checking Billy's old haunts, or trying to recruit a posse, although he doesn't show much interest in either. It feels more like Garrett taking a last vacation to the old places he also used to haunt, before they're erased in the changing West.
That's a big part of it, that Garrett sees the West changing and is trying to change to survive it. Meanwhile, Billy intends to go forward just the way he is, for as long as he can. It isn't so much that Billy's a great guy; people turn up dead around him with great frequency. He's cheats when one of Garrett's deputies (played by Jack Elam) says they'll settle things with the 10 paces then turn and draw bit. (Elam cheats, too, just not as immediately, and therefore less successfully.) More that Garrett is at least as bad a guy as Billy, if not worse. But now he's got a badge to backstop his bad temper and quick trigger, which gives him even more freedom to be a shit.
I don't understand the point of the scene in the outpost trading store, where Garrett makes the two guys sit down with him, has Alias (Bob Dylan) club one with the rifle, makes the other get drunk, then shoots him, and makes Alias read all the labels on the canned goods. He doesn't ask them anything about Billy, they don't start a fight with him. He just seems to do it because he's in an ornery mood, and he can get away with it. He's got the badge, whereas when Billy kills someone, even if it's a bunch of cowhands torturing a sheepherder on orders from the local big rancher, has to run, because now he's a criminal. So I guess it's to prove what a lousy guy Garrett is, but it sure felt unnecessary when I was wanting the movie to hurry up and end.
Kristofferson plays Billy with a charisma that makes it obvious why people like him and help him. The friendly smile and the charm, a bit of a showman to impress the rubes. But he also makes it clear Billy knowingly leverages it to get what he wants in a way that could also make people hate him. I thought for a while Harry Dean Stanton's character would kill him, after Billy shows up in the middle of the night, immediately claims the girl sleeping with Stanton, then insults Stanton as he's forced to find a new bunk. There was an easy confidence to the whole sequence, like Billy knew the girl would go with it, and Stanton wouldn't challenge him. Not sure if it's Billy thinking he's good at reading people, or just not caring.
Coburn doesn't get as much to do. Garrett's just kind of a lazy prick. He's never in a hurry, help that's offered, he treats badly, and bullies and threatens other people into helping him. He knows it, and probably hates himself for it, maybe even as much as everyone else hates him, but he does it anyway. He's a survivor.
I didn't really the point of Dylan's character. I guess he's someone trying to decide which way to go with his life, and he's studying the two guys who exemplify different paths. Hangs out in the saloon where Garrett's at after Billy's escape. Then goes to where Billy is, kills a guy trying to bring in Billy, rides with Billy a while, then shows up at that trading post, then back to the old fort by the time Billy returns. He takes action a couple of times, but mostly he watches what they do, how they act.
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