Stripped down tales of good and evil where legends loom large and men even larger against backdrops of dust, no genre puts an actor on display quite like a western.
Cutting through artifice to show us the performer without their bag of tricks, just like it took watching Red River for John Ford to realize that the Duke could act, it wasn't until I saw Val Kilmer in Tombstone and Ben Foster in 3:10 to Yuma that I discovered just how crazily talented the two really are.
Stealing focus from the film's marquee stars, it was Ben Foster's feral performance as a Yuma villain in fact that came flooding back to mind shortly after I started The Kid and the film introduced us to its titular Billy the Kid played by Dane DeHaan.
A mesmerizing turn by an actor I've seen before (but now am sure I won't forget), whether he's spinning an epic yarn or escaping from custody in a scene just dripping with charisma, DeHaan sizes up and plays on his costars and the audience for maximum impact.
Directed by one of Generation X's most accomplished performers in the form of actor turned acting teacher and filmmaker Vincent D'Onofrio, although it's narratively forgettable, The Kid is an actor's picture all around.
Hoping to keep DeHaan from easily running away with it all, The Kid plugs a traditional coming-of-age storyline about a teenage boy's fight to save his sister from their evil uncle into the middle of the otherwise fact based standoff between Billy the Kid and the law.
With D'Onofrio's Newton Boys and Magnificent Seven costar Ethan Hawke wearing the badge as Sheriff Pat Garrett and elevating the film from some of its bland and predictable plot machinations, The Kid flirts with occasional greatness as first Garrett and later DeHaan's Kid recall the story of the first person they ever fatally shot.
Two thematically similar monologues in two different sections of the movie that — when performed by these stars — sound like two choruses to the same song, the script by 2010 Nicholl fellowship winner Andrew Lanham might revolve around a familiar arc but it's punctuated with bright spots.
Bolstered by promising newcomers Jake Schur and D'Onofrio's daughter Leila George as the two siblings on the run from their menacing uncle played to sneering, unrecognizable effect by D'Onofrio and Hawke's Magnificent Seven costar Chris Pratt, the film struggles to find a balance between its A and B plot.
Relegating the two characters we know the best to the sidelines while simultaneously strengthening them with great speeches and star power, The Kid seems as torn as Schur's character is regarding which man's side he wants to be on.
Helping to heighten excitement and quicken the pace at precisely the right time, during The Kid's bold escape from custody, editor Katharine McQuerrey cuts on action repeatedly. Beautifully lensed by Cop Car cinematographer Matthew J. Lloyd, in the bravura sequence we follow DeHaan's character off a roof to the ground to the stirrups and over a horse in a series of inventive edits which give the film a much needed booster shot.
Pushing and pulling us from fact and fiction to and fro throughout, while we are never as fully invested in Schur's coming-of-age plight as I'm sure D'Onofrio (who helped conceive the premise) would have liked, The Kid's enviable star roster — especially MVP Dane DeHaan — ensures that our attention never strays from the old west for long.
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