Amazon.com Essentials:
Billy the Kid is reimagined by director Sam Peckinpah as a kind
of Old West rock star, a young man who wants to do his own thing but
constantly runs up against the objections of the establishment--in this
case, the cattle barons who run this part of the country. Peckinpah
indulged in some quirky casting, including Bob Dylan as an outlaw named
Alias and most of Kristofferson's band as Billy's gang. He also draws
exceptional performances out of a cast of old veterans, including James
Coburn as the reluctant Pat Garrett, R.G. Armstrong, Katy Jurado, and Slim
Pickens, who has a terrific death scene to Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's
Door." Look for this longer version (122 minutes); the shorter version is
the one that
MGM recut against Peckinpah's wishes, removing all the character
development and Peckinpah's elegiac sense of the Old West in favor of
action and violence. --Marshall Fine
