Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid Details

Despite studio tinkering, this near-masterpiece from director Sam Peckinpah is almost on a par with The Wild Bunch. It's a brooding meditation on violence, honour and loyalty in the last days of the Old West, as gunman-turned-sheriff Garrett (James Coburn) relives the past before taking on his one-time partner Billy (Kris Kristofferson). It becomes an elegy for the father/son relationship that figures in so much American literature, as both men try to live up to the legend their lives have imposed upon them. Singer Bob Dylan makes an acting appearance but, thankfully, with all his tics and twitches, is soon sidelined. Instead, Peckinpah concentrates on a pioneer world in which the cattle barons are the true villains and the outlaws the only real heroes.

Blood-spattered version of a Western legend, with violence always to the fore, accentuated by the impossibility of listening to the dialogue because of poor direction and recording.