Word: garrette
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...GARRETT AND BILLY...
...story that has been told many times over: how Pat Garrett shot down Billy the Kid, who was his friend. It has never been told so strangely, however, with such a stern sense of beauty and of fate, as it is here by Sam Peckinpah. He is one of the most prodigious of all American film makers, and perhaps also one of the most prodigal...
Peckinpah and Scenarist Rudolph Wurlitzer (Two Lane Blacktop) transform Garrett and the Kid into the kind of uneasy antagonists who test and challenge each other with every inflection. Garrett and the Kid have become estranged by ungovernable coincidence, made enemies by the intervention of impersonal circumstances...
...easily and exceptionally well acted by Kris Kristofferson) has his chance at settling down, building a respectable life working for the cattle interests. Instead, he chooses to run free with his friends (one of whom is played by an appropriately enigmatic Bob Dylan, who also provides some good music). Garrett (James Coburn), older, feeling threatened by age, takes a lawman's job. The marshal's badge makes him answerable to the ranchers and the politicians in Santa Fe. It is their star, their job, and they want Billy out of the way. Garrett rides down to Old Fort...
...next couple of months, Garrett tracks the Kid. He gives Billy as much time and distance as he can, but keeps closing on him all the same. Billy rides for Mexico, but then inexplicably turns around. It is never quite clear why Billy goes back. When he does, though, the movie wobbles and goes lame. Peckinpah and Wurlitzer are on much surer ground dealing with the dubious morality of Garrett's decision to hunt Billy. Garrett, unlike Peckinpah's other protagonists in High Country and The Wild Bunch, is no hero. As played-superbly -by Coburn...