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Created Feb 20, 2011 07:02PM PST • Edited Apr 03, 2014 08:37PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   The myths about one of the Wild West’s most mythologized characters get burnished in this enjoyable biopic. Hollywoodized to the point of cliche, Wild Bill isn’t much for historical veracity. That leaves it free to make entertaining hay out of the many shootouts, lovers, standoffs, and saloons in the Hickok legend.

   Bottom line: The great Wild Bill Hickok movie is yet to be made.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Jeff Bridges easily inhabits the ramblin’, gamblin’ Wild Bill. With his strong physical presence and laconic charm, it’s a role tailor-made for this post-modern Western stalwart.

   Ellen Barkin as Calamity Jane also steps into a role seemingly tailored for her signature tomboy sexiness. Unfortunately she underwhelms a bit. She’s far from bad, just not great, as one might have hoped when “Ellen Barkin as Calamity Jane” flashes on the credits.

   Diane Lane as Hickok’s other girlfriend also impresses, as this screen queen always does. When Wild Bill sidles up to her at a barn dance, inviting her onto the floor because she’s “the prettiest girl here,” it’s both flattery and truth.

   Much of the rest of the large cast are wasted in small or ill conceived roles.

   Then there’s snively David Arquette as the coward Jack McCall. Talk about an anti-hero. Unfortunately, Arquette imparts little of interest into the movie’s chief villain. He compares unfavorably to Casey Affleck’s similar role in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, even if that was a much worse movie.

   Interestingly, Keith Carradine plays Buffalo Bill Cody in Wild Bill and Wild Bill in the much superior HBO series Deadwood.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars OK 2.5

8. Male Costars OK 2.5

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Deadwood – where Hickok spent his final weeks of life – serves as the film’s main locale. Here the coward Jack McCall shot him in the back of the head as he played poker, for once not with his back to the wall. Here also he spent time with Calamity Jane, in a 19th century hot tub as director Walter Hill would have it.

    Hill and writer Pete Dexter apparently felt the need to lard up the Deadwood chapter with fictional complications, perhaps to beef it up relative to the many flashbacks of earlier chapters. It ends up feeling a bit phony, taking away from what is otherwise an accomplished Hollywoodized Western.

11. Direction Good 3.0

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music Good 3.0

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.3

    Lots of realistic gun fights and other assorted mayhem. As is Walter Hill’s style, the violence is visceral. More attractively, Bridge’s Hickok has several sexy assignations with Ellen Barkin’s Calamity Jane and Diane Lane’s prairie MILF.

17. Sex Titillating 1.6

18. Violence Brutal 2.6

19. Rudeness Profane 2.6

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.4

    Not one for the history books, this movie’s reality liberties range from minor to major. An example of the latter: Wild Bill’s assassin acted alone, not hiring a gang of cutthroats to assist him as the movie would have it. Of the former: Hickok fires his two Colt 1851 Navy Revolvers more than two dozen times in one shootout without reloading. Guess they were twelve shooters rather than six. Not.

    Consider the trailer alone: Several of the characters and incidents are whole clothe fiction. Why lie? It’s not like there’s not more than enough to work with in the real record. Oh well, once a dime novel hero, always a dime novel hero.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.6

23. Biological Glib 1.8

24. Physical Surreal 2.8