Starring Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Philips, Christian Slater, and William L. Peterson
Produced by John Fusco, James G. Robinson, and Joe Roth
Written by John Fusco
Directed by Geoff Murphy


The movie starts with an old man telling a young lawyer that he is Billy the Kid and he wants to be pardoned before he dies, which is based on Bushy Bill Robert’s claim to be Billy the Kid. Since Bonney is telling the story you have a pretty good idea of how the movie will end.

Billy is now riding with Dave Rudabaugh and Pat Garrett, and they are treated like heroes in old Fort Sumner. Governor Lew Wallace (the author of Ben Hur) has declared war on outlaws and he is rounding up everyone who was involved in the Lincoln County War, including Chavez and Doc Scurlock, the only other survivors of the last film. To Billy's surprise, he is offered amnesty by Wallace if he testifies against the Murphy faction. The governor wants to break the survivors of the Murphy gang because they have been rustling too many herds, so Wallace offers a pardon in exchange for Billy’s testimony and his promise to leave New Mexico. Billy is officially arrested but is actually treated like a king. However, the prosecuting attorney is part of the Murphy faction, and decides to prosecute Bonney, saying that Wallace didn’t have the power to oppose the Irish politicians who run Lincoln County. Bonney, being Bonney, escapes and recruits an even bigger gang. He also goes out of his way to make an enemy of John Chisum, the most powerful rancher in the state, at which point any sane person would start to wonder if he has a deathwish.

Since the current sheriff is unwilling to hunt Bonney down, Chisum works with the governor to ensure that Pat Garrett becomes sheriff of Lincoln County. Fed up with Bonney’s rustling, the Cattlemen’s Association sends John Poe and several goons to help Garrett. The rest of the movie focuses on the posse’s hunt for Bonney.

Unlike the first movie, the action relies more on special effects, not shootouts, but it is entertaining and relatively accurate. Unnecessary conflict between the members of Billy’s gang is invented, but nothing too extreme, no melodramatic shouting matches, just violent men settling disagreements with violence. The story follows the basic chronology of events but makes the outlaws more pleasant and sober than they probably were in real life. While New Mexico is shown as being settled by anal-retentive puritanical Easterners, the real Bonney and his friends gradually lost public support because they actually were criminals, who stole other people’s property, usually cattle, and instead of giving to the poor, frequently reached for their guns instead of their wallets when pressed to pay their bills.

Several themes run through the movie. Bonney is driven by a desire to keep the gang together despite the risk to his life and his friends’ lives. Garrett’s actions show that he is losing his soul, which seems a bit forced, and more importantly, didn’t happen. Garrett was a hard man and not good friends with Bonney, but I did like how the hunt for Billy is shown as a hunt, a cold-blooded assassination. There is also a nice subtext about how people from the East are making New Mexico civilized, so there is no place anymore for Bonney and his friends. By the end the movie, all of his friends are dead and Bonney regrets that his desire to get the gang back together caused their deaths. When they are finally trapped, Bonney admits that he wanted to keep the gang together because he did not want to be just another gringo in Mexico. Given the selfish nature of his motivation, it may seem ironic that he is the one that survives.

The second movie has more of a sense of fate and tragedy than the first. While the action was better in the first movie, the second movie relies less on a black and white approach, preferring instead to show that there were no heroes, just violent men unwilling to accept that their time had passed.