Starring: Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen, Dermot Mulroney, Casey Siemaszko, Terry O’Quinn, Jack Palance, Terence Stamp
Written By: John Fusco
Directed By: Christopher Cain
Studio: Lionsgate
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The movie that supposedly brought back the western, Young Guns, is now available on 4k UHD for the first time from Lionsgate. I love the Young Guns movies and used to watch them all the time growing up and it’s celebrating its 35th anniversary. The movie’s quality hasn’t looked better!

For those that might not know, Young Guns is a re-telling of Billy the Kid during the Lincoln County War in New Mexico in the late 1800s. Troubled gunman, Billy the Kid (Emilio Estevez) gets recruited by an English cattleman John Tunstall (Terence Stamp) and works for him along with Doc Scurlock (Kiefer Sutherland), Jose Chavez y Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips), Dick Brewer (Charlie Sheen), “Dirty” Steve Stephens (Dermot Mulroney), and Charlie Bowdre (Casey Siemaszko). That is until a war breaks out between Tunstall’s men and rival rancher Lawrence Murphy (Jack Palance). Then the “Regulators” are on the run from the law and other gangs.

It’s been a few years since seeing Young Guns, probably the last time I watched it was on DVD. It wasn’t available on streaming for many years for some reason but the second movie was, go figure. There’ve been many movies about Billy the Kid but from what I read, this one always seemed the most accurate in terms of timeline and a sort of guideline of what happened. Some people get killed in different spots, or not at all so there’s a little bit of Hollywood-ness to these movies as well. Still, it makes for one hell of an entertaining Western. I always go down a rabbit hole on Wikipedia after watching these movies because I find it so fascinating about the lives of Billy the Kid, Doc, Chavez and others.

This 4K release has a great featurette with new interviews with some of the cast like Lou Diamond Phillips, Dermot Mulroney and Casey Siemaszko, writer John Fusco and director Christopher Cain. They talk about stories on the set, and some are pretty damn funny. They talk about how Tom Cruise visited the set and they put him in a movie, which I didn’t even know about until I saw this! They also talk about tossing out a James Horner score for the movie which I think was a dumb decision. They show a before and after comparison of the score tracks. Definitely watch this featurette after the movie. Billy the Kid: the True Story is a carry-over from other releases.

Young Guns looks great on 4k UHD and I hope the same will happen with Young Guns II. The ensemble “brat pack” cast is great, I just love a fun western although I could have done without the 80s rockin’ score and should have used the score from Horner. Thankfully the sequel uses Alan Silvestri’s score, which is one of my favorites from him. It’s the 80s though so it made sense at the time. Let’s make it Rock n Roll western! As much as I love this movie, it would be great to see a proper Billy the Kid series done on one of the streaming services. In the meantime, we get to enjoy the Young Guns movies.

Features:
Audio Commentary with Lou Diamond Phillips, Dermot Mulroney and Casey Siemaszko
How the West Was Wild: Making Young Guns
Billy the Kid: The True Story
Teaser Trailer
Theatrical Trailer

Video:
Codec: HEVC / H.265
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Audio:
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: LPCM 2.0

Subtitles:
English, English SDH, Spanish

Bottom Line: Still a fun western after all these years!
Running Time: 102 mins
Rating: R
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: