Le Gaucher

Paul Newman showed early in his career that he would become a great actor and that it wouldn't be a problem for him to play characters that, while clichéd, are still interesting. He gave Billy the Kid just the right touch, and he makes this film properly dramatic. A bit of a forgotten western, but unjustly so. (21/09/2015)

Paul Newman is great as Billy the Kid. He handled the role of a young cocky dandy with a hell of a fast left hand without a single mistake and the young Mr. Bonney is definitely unforgettable in his performance. It's worse with John Dehner, who played Pat Garrett. It's clear that Penn's film wanted to portray the friendship and the fall out of the two as naturally, yet also as dramatically as possible, but Dehner failed in this regard. Either he just grumbles blandly, or he suddenly resorts to a hideously overacting performance, as he did especially in the scene after the wedding, when he jumped in the style of a mad devil out of a box and I was just waiting to see if he would have a heart attack. As for the rest of the film - there are a number of original and certainly daring scenes for the time (the reaction of a little girl and her mother after Billy shoots one of the lawmen in the street), but otherwise it's pretty black and white, and not just in terms of imagery. Three and a half. Of course, I prefer not to compare it with Peckinpah's work. (27/01/2012)