Critic Reviews
51
Metascore
Mixed or Average
positive
8(33%)
mixed
12(50%)
negative
4(17%)
Showing 24 Critic Reviews
83
Wild Bill succeeds as a character study of a man whose idiosyncratic code of justice eventually catches up with him. Bridges’ performance is a masterstroke of squinty-eyed bitterness, and he gets colorful support from Ellen Barkin (as kitten with a whip Calamity Jane) and John Hurt (as a dissipated British dandy).
80
Wild Bill is uncompromising almost to the point of orneriness. Director Hill takes you from one incident to the next, trusting you - or, rather, expecting you - to work out the connections among them. [01 Dec 1995, p.21]
75
Hill evokes the great westerns of the past—in particular "Shane" and "My Darling Clementine"— but his approach is essentially postmodern. Though Hickok is a hero from another century, his plight is thoroughly contemporary.
75
Director Hill usually makes rough 'n' ready films about men in action ("48 HRS," "Extreme Prejudice"). His change-of-pace 1993 Western, "Geronimo: An American Legend," caught many off guard. "Wild Bill" continues to exhibit this maturing filmmaker while retaining the boisterous tone of Hill's earlier films.
75
What Kasdan's "Earp" needed was more humor and better villains. "Wild Bill" has the humor and villains, the flash and energy, the fire and style. And when, at the end, Hill seems to throw it all away, it almost hurts. But you can say one thing about "Wild Bill": Unlike most movies, it has a lot to throw away. [01 Dec 1995, p.C]
70
However hamstrung it occasionally becomes, "Wild Bill" is impressive for a thoughtful, daring spirit and a charismatic hero, so unapologetically larger than life.
67
While Hill’s hallucinatory script — adapted from a novel and a play — is about the dangers of fostering your own myth, the movie fawns over its character’s legend rather than aiming for his murky reality.
67
In any case, for all its good points, this movie doesn't click, it never builds much dramatic tension or momentum, it doesn't communicate a clear vision of the man behind the myth, and it finally can't find a coherent narrative line to tell its (ultimately inaccurate) story. [01 Dec 1995]
60
This is a valiant but overcomplicated Western that aims to redraw the lines on Western mythology: with heroes as mere humans, and heroics as distortions of the truth.
60
Both as a modern Western and as a Hill movie, this is efficient but middling - which still, finally, means that it's worth catching.
