George Pan Cosmatos
Tombstone

THE REVIEW

The gunpowder from the rifles weighs down the scorching air of Tombstone. Former sheriff Wyatt Earp (a mustached Kurt Russell) has decided he no longer wants to use those rifles, he no longer wants to deal with gunpowder. His sole aim is to settle down, to bring needed economic and passionate stability to his life. But the American West is not the place to start a new life...

Old-fashioned Western. A Western reminiscent of Leone (with the due references and bows), in which friendship remains the fundamental value on which to base one’s existence, rather than love, a mere corollary in a life filled with violence and bullets. This is the interpretation that Greek George Pan Cosmatos brings to the Western. A director born and grown in the shadow of our own Leone and the masters Peckinpah and Sturges. It’s from Sturges's masterpiece “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” that Cosmatos reprises one of the West's most famous shootouts, featuring Sheriff Wyatt Earp.  

Cosmatos's film juggles a story as violent as necessary, dirty and raw as necessary. There’s the saloon, there are playing cards, there’s alcohol, there’s tobacco. There are all the elements that made the genre great. The violent note can be seen from the bloody first ten minutes: a peaceful wedding turns into tragedy. Colors, lines, and style recall Leone of the "dollars," while later the film settles on wanting to more detailedly recreate the climate of 1881, yet without neglecting the baseness of the city, the central hub of the story.

"Tombstone" plunges into utter chaos. Women face each other during a gunfight, heroic actions dictated by the truest friendship. In this sense, the true "axis" of the film lies in the affection between the two protagonists: Wyatt Earp and a man who found fame in "Tombstone" as a gunslinger and gambler. This man is Doc Holliday, played by Val Kilmer, a consumptive with his days numbered, but a faithful companion in the fight against injustice.

In an escalation of death, blood, rifles, bullets, Wyatt finds himself having to fight what he no longer wanted to fight, and Doc embarking on a series of initiatives that only worsen his illness. The last minutes of the film are indeed the total and complete demonstration of how friendship, true friendship, is more important than love.

"Tombstone," a film from 1993, is a welcome return to the Western that made us famous worldwide thanks to the inimitable Leone. Cosmatos undoubtedly draws inspiration from the violence and "grime" of Leone to breathe life into a purely classic Western, made of shootouts, values, and ironic lines. A small gem, one of the best Westerns of the last twenty years.

"This is a Nocturne, by an idiot named Chopin."