WILD BILL: Bridges "Barkin" Up The Wrong Tree!

  I have to come clean.  I LOVE Westerns.  Even ones where the acting isn’t great.  I  love a good story and that’s the only reason I’m giving this movie a 6 out of 10 instead of a 2.  (although I’m sure there are at least a few readers out there who would give me the same low review for coming up with some of the titles recently!!) 
  This is not a particularly well-acted part for Jeff Bridges.  But what saves him is a REMARKABLE likeness to the real Wild Bill Hickock.  I mean, it’s uncanny!  When that happens, all Bridges has to do is be a LITTLE BIT like his subject and the job is done.  When you think of the gold standard for performers in a Western, you think of Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, and Val Kilmer.  Perhaps it’s unfair to hold Bridges up to that kind of bar. 
  The story is decent, although a number of liberties have been taken with the truth. Perhaps the biggest is that Jack McCall is Susannah Moore’s son in the movie!  THAT is rather far-fetched in terms of historical truths.  The movie also suggests that Calamity Jane and Wild Bill had an on again-off again romance, but even history is a bit fuzzy on that one, so I’ll let it slide.  That Wild Bill was a tragic figure and destined sooner or later to suffer the same fate as those who he shot is a given.  The movie starts out with his funeral, so you already know how it’s going to end.  It’s the story of a gunfighter who lived hard.  And died hard.  As I said, it’s a decent movie.  But then again, I’m biased!

6 out of 10