When I reviewed Dances with Wolves (1990), I joked about how I thought it was the longest movie ever made.  Now that I have seen Wyatt Earp (1994), I know this is no longer the case.  Then again, one could take Horizon: An American Saga as a whole and say it is even lengthier.  Chapter 1 (2024) is a little over three hours, and the same is true for Chapter 2(2024).  I could barely get through the first, so who knows if I will ever get around to the second.  By the way, there are two more planned.  There is one person who is a common denominator through all of these, and that is Kevin Costner.  Of these, Dances with Wolves is the most competent, winning seven Oscars, the most of any Western.  The reason for this is because it is an actual story.  With apologies to humanity, our lives are not lived in a narrative structure.  When Costner got a hold of a script for Wyatt Earp, he seemingly decided to tell it in a straight linear fashion, with the title character (Kevin Costner) learning little along the way.  What shall follow is me trying to make sense of this . . . epic?

If there is anything that anyone knows about the supposedly epic life of Wyatt Earp, it is that he was involved with the famous shoot out at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, on October 26^th, 1881.  Wyatt is waiting in a saloon for his younger brother, Morgan Earp (Linden Ashby), and older brother, Virgil Earp (Michael Madsen), both deputies.  They arrive with word of trouble makers at the aforementioned locale and off they go . . . and we now spend the next two hours in flashback in order to return to that point in time.  Hence, it really starts back east in Iowa where young Wyatt (Ian Bohen) is eager to run away from home to join the Union army during the Civil War.  His father, Nicholas Porter Earp (Gene Hackman), prevents Wyatt from leaving.  Soon thereafter, his two brothers whom he had been wanting to join return from the war.  With them home, Nicholas announces to the family that they are going to move to California to pursue better opportunities.  Between this restlessness, instilling the importance of family, and the need to strike first against evil, all advice from dad, makes up everything you need to know about Wyatt’s character.  A few years pass and the now grownup Wyatt is working on a stage coach line.  It is while traveling through the rough and tumble American West that he develops a reputation for being tough but fair.  Nonetheless, this is a temporary lifestyle as in Missouri is the love of his young life, Urilla Sutherland (Annabeth Gish).  Unfortunately, they are only married for a short time.  She develops typhoid fever while pregnant with their child, and both die as a result of the illness.  Wyatt does not take this well.  After burning down his house, he takes up the bottle and drifts down to Arkansas, where he is arrested for assault and stealing a horse.  Nicholas comes to get his son out of jail, telling him to ride out of the state and never return.  From there, it is back to wandering, this time taking up as buffalo hunter.  During this time, he meets brothers Bat Masterson (Tom Sizemore) and Ed Masterson (Bill Pullman).  They work with Wyatt for a little while in the buffalo trade, but it is in Wichita, Kansas, that they will enter the law profession.  It is Wyatt that first joins the police ranks when the current local constabulary proves too timid to deal with an unruly denizen.  Where there is one Earp, there will soon be more, as Wyatt is joined by James, Morgan, and Virgil.  Order is restored, but the Earps eventually wear out their welcome, with Ed’s less abrasive style being elevated into Wyatt’s former position.  Once more, Wyatt takes to the trail, tracking down bandits for a railroad company.  It is in this guise that he finally meets the second most famous person in this story, John “Doc” Holliday (Dennis Quaid).  At first, the meeting is purely transactional, with Doc having information on the suspect Wyatt is pursuing.  From there, it blossoms into a friendship for some reason.  Between hailing from opposite sides in the Civil War and Wyatt being a teetotaler to Doc dying of tuberculosis (the result of alcohol consumption), it is difficult to see why they would get along at all, and nor does the movie want to tell us.  At any rate, eventually Wyatt settles for a time in Dodge City, Kansas, where he is recruited to do what he has become known as: a no-nonsense lawman.  While there, he also buys shares in saloons.  He even takes up a kind of relationship with another woman, Mattie Blaylock (Mare Winningham), though the fact that she is a prostitute and addicted to laudanum puts a strain on their dealings.  Soon enough, Wyatt’s wanderlust gets the better of him again, this time taking everyone to Tombstone to take advantage of the booming silver industry.  Instead, they end up doing more of the same stuff about which I have already been writing.  It is during this time that the previously discussed gun fight occurs.  In retaliation, the gang known as the Cowboys murder Morgan and attempt to do the same with Virgil.  Wyatt sends his family away by train to California in order to keep them safe.  The person not going with them is Mattie, who is completely lost to laudanum and mad with jealousy over Wyatt’s relationship with actress Josephine “Josie” Marcus (Joanna Going).  Wyatt asks Josie to go somewhere else, too, saying that he will find her once he has gotten his revenge on the Cowboys.  With that, Doc and Wyatt take to the countryside and kill all the bad guys they can find.  The final scene is set some seventeen years later, with Josie and Wyatt headed to Alaska to take part in the gold rush going on in that future state.

A moment ago, I labeled the Cowboys as the “bad guys” in Wyatt Earp, which I guess is true.  Really, I am only saying this because they are the ones the protagonist fights, hence they must be bad.  I am not really sure what they do that is worthy of this label.  Everyone in the American West appears to break the law at this time, including Wyatt.  Even Doc, no stranger to crime himself, comments on how Wyatt’s revenge quest is less than legal.  There is also the literal lawbreaking earlier in the film, which is never revisited.  Another aspect of Earp not shown in the movie is the fact that at other times in his life he was wanted by the authorities for running an illegal brothel and working as a pimp.  You do not see this sort of thing in the film because it does not fit with Wyatt’s uncompromising character.  I hope, as a Catholic, that his experience in Arkansas taught him a lesson, but it is difficult to tell.  If nothing else, I guess you could say that it led to him giving up the bottle?  All the same, for a three-hour movie, the title person is about as robotic as they come, which makes it feel lengthier.  Only God can truly know a person.  This includes you and me, and Wyatt Earp.  At the same time, you would think that such a cinematic length of time would afford us some glimpses beneath the surface of this marble man.  To be human is to be vulnerable.  That is how God created us, and it helps us in order to be communion with Him and others.  In the end, all he really has is Josie despite all his dad’s talk about the importance of family.

Then again, if I was a part of Wyatt Earp’s family, I would not want to see him again, either.  That works on two levels.  First, Morgan’s wife, Louisa Earp (Alison Elliott), blames Wyatt for Morgan’s death and no longer speaks to Wyatt.  I apply this to my life, as I hope to never again see this film, and I pray the same for you.