wild bill

No one plays cowboy better than Jeff Bridges. In fact, he's gotten so good a pulling off the toothless, beer-bellied, past-his-prime gunhand (see True Grit or Hell or High Water) that it's getting difficult to picture him as anything else. Ironic for a California kid whose early roles were mostly freewheeling hippies with an infectious grin. And, although he'd dabbled in the Old West before, 1995's Wild Bill is one of the signposts for the second half of his career, directed with a sort of ruthless poetry by western aficionado and action specialist Walter (The Warriors) Hill.

Hill's screenplay pulls material from several sources to create its own slideshow of the life of Wild Bill Hickok, a legendary figure of the American West whose exploits grow in stature with each telling of the tale. After stints as a soldier, a buffalo hunter, a lawman and a performer, Bill's legend finally comes to rest in the town of Deadwood, a pop-up gold rush community that lures in some of the best and worst society has to offer.

Greeted by old friend - and lover - Calamity Jane (Ellen Barkin), Bill settles in as the resident celebrity, holding court in the local saloon with his pal Charley Prince (John Hurt), who also serves as the film's intermittent narrator. But after being called out by one Jack McCall (David Arquette), the son of a former flame, Bill begins to question how he's lived his life, including the ruined relationships and dead bodies left behind. Fueled by opium-induced memories, the old gunslinger ponders the road not taken while Jack plots for revenge.

Resolutely non-linear in nature, Hill's film lifts some techniques from Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers released just year before, switching between color, black-and-white and even video sources to drift through Bill's unfocused flashbacks. It's more of a distraction than an innovation at this point, but it's nothing the rest of the film can't overcome. Hill and cinematographer Lloyd Ahern paint Deadwood itself in an almost theatrical color scheme, washed in extravagant purples, blues and yellows. It's nothing like the muted muddy reality of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven. This is the West with a capital "W," pulled from the dime novels and exaggerated stories, where every character lives on a stage.

The supporting cast (James, Gammon, Bruce Dern, James Remar and Diane Lane) gives the film a lived-in look, but it's Bridges' show from start to finish. Playing the part of a civilized savage who's outlived his own legend, his performance is full of all the macho posturing common in Walter Hill's work, but tempered with a sentimental bent all its own. Tragic and invigorating at the same time, it's quite simply one of Bridge's finest roles. You won't see Wild Bill turn up on any list of top ten westerns just yet, but, like its main character, its reputation is only getting better with age.

Twilight Time's 3000-copy limited edition Blu-ray is well worth the upgrade. Colors and clarity show a startling improvement across the board over the old DVD. Extras include a trailer, isolated score track and liner notes.