'80s Roulette: YOUNG GUNS

Emilio Estevez leads a not-quite-rowdy-enough ensemble

I have (almost) every single movie released in theaters in the ‘80s in the United States on a hard drive, and once a week, I’m going to hit shuffle and review whatever film comes up first.

Welcome to ‘80s Roulette!

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AUGUST 12, 1988

Young Guns
Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen, Dermot Mulroney, Casey Siemaszko, Terence Stamp, Jack Palance, Terry O’Quinn, Sharon Thomas Cain, Geoffrey Blake, Alice Carter, Brian Keith, Thomas Callaway, Patrick Wayne, Lisa Banes, Sam Gauny, Cody Palance, Gadeek, Victor Izay, Allen Keller, Craig Erickson, Jeremy Lepard, Danny Kamin, Richela Renkun, Pat Finn-Lee, Gary Kanin, Forrest Broadley, Alan Tobin, Joey Hamlin, Loyd Lee Brown, Elena Parres,
cinematography by Dean Semler
music by Brian Banks and Anthony Marinelli
screenplay by John Fusco
produced by Christopher Cain
directed by Christopher Cain
Rated R
1 hr 47 mins

The story of Billy the Kid and the Regulators during the Lincoln County War.

One of my favorite things about working at a movie theater in the ‘80s was the day we’d get new posters and we’d go through them and decide what to put up. In an age before the Internet, there were plenty of movies that were completely under the radar until that poster would show up, and my movie-crazy buddies and I would suddenly have this new thing to be curious about. I remember the day I pulled the Young Guns poster out of the tube, with its line-up of the cast, everyone’s names in giant letters, and the tagline at the top: SIX REASONS WHY THE WEST WAS WILD.