Critic's Grade: C+

There's nothing more annoying than watching a period movie with modern influences where they simply don't belong. Case in point: "Young Guns," which makes the fatal mistake of infusing a late-1800's Western setting with late-1980's rock rhythms on the soundtrack. It's the first in a series of flaws that eventually bog the movie down, aided by the ever-idiotic screenplay, the stone-faced acting, and the lack of any energy to the proceedings that stems from the material's inability to lend anything new to the genre.

The film tells the story of William H. Bonney (Emilio Estevez), otherwise known as Billy the Kid, who would become a part of the "regulators," a group of five other men (Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen, Dermot Mulroney, and Casey Siemaszko) who work to protect British ranch owner John Tunstall (Terence Stamp). At that time, the notorious Santa Fe Ring was at large, and when they finally succeed in taking Tunstall's life early on in the film, the regulators vow vengeance, becoming members of the law before they are branded outlaws in the aftermath of Bonney's impulse killings and thirst for revenge.

You can appreciate "Young Guns" as an over-the-top, spectacle-laden Western with all the empty calories of a Big Mac, but that doesn't stop it from looking cheesy. Granted, there is a certain amount of zeal to some of the stake-out sequences, and the final showdown between the law and the regulators is at least marginally entertaining, even if it is completely redundant after the first five minutes. Director Christopher Cain gives his film a sheen through meticulous production design and authenticity than any genre buff will appreciate. But when it comes to making John Fusco's screenplay something richer, it's a lost cause. There is a great lack of interest in these characters, despite some noticeable effort from the sextet of actors; we never really see them as anything more than pawns in this game of cat-and-mouse. The film suffers a great deal from this, as well as from the overall lack of intrigue about the life of Billy the Kid as seen through the eyes of the filmmakers. It certainly seems as if he was a lively character; too bad that "Young Guns" doesn't really capture that essence of free-wheeling that is so integral to its success.

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