Wild Times (1980)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Powerful

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Some of the worst acting ever committed to film by name players. The story is weak, the score abysmal, the directing non existent. This may have been the film that doomed Sam Elliott to supporting roles, B movies and TV westerns following his bravura performance in "Once An Eagle." Dennis Hopper's mumbled lines take up about 30 seconds. Ben Johnson is sleepwalking through his role and the female lead would have had difficulty outshining the furniture. Poorly written, poorly directed and poorly acted. It is hard to understand the high ratings given by some reviewers. If the novel on which it was based was as bad as this two-part miniseries, it is hard to believe it was published. The horses were pretty good, however.

Wild Times is a real piece of crap. A Don "Red" Barry movie from the early forties has more intelligence than this tripe. The dialogue was dumb, the storyline was dumber, and the acting was way below par. My wife and I got stuck watching all three hours and twenty one minutes of this valueless video on the Westerns Channel, hoping that as time wore on it would get better. It never did. It started out mildly okay, then went downhill from there. Some movie moguls must have had a lot of cash and nothing to do to waste their time and everyone elses with this worthless western. If you have the choice of watching Wild Times or rearranging your sock drawer - do the socks. It'll be more entertaining.

It would make more sense to view this story as a TV mini-series the way it was originally produced than to do as I did, and catch it all in one sitting on Encore Westerns. For one, the picture is ponderously long at three and a half plus hours, and you have to be patient with the abrupt scene changes that were designed around commercial breaks and new chapters. Particularly frustrating was a seven year time lapse that reunites Hugh Cardiff (Sam Elliott) and Libby Tyree (Penny Peyser); Libby had gotten married to the adopted Tyree son (Bruce Boxleitner) off screen, and it just springs up on you with no advance warning. Cardiff had promised to return in a year's time, but didn't, and one's only indication that time was passing by was the sudden aging of Sam Elliott's character.The interesting part about the story has to do with the way Cardiff manufactures a persona for himself and friend Caleb Rice (Timothy Scott) based on frontier exploits that are entirely made up. They capture the imagination of pulp fiction writer Bob Halburton (Pat Hingle), and based on the success of his newspaper's accounts, the boys find themselves headlining Wild Bill Hickok's Wild West show. Besides Hickok, portrayed by L.Q. Jones, the other historical figure to make an appearance was Doc Holliday, courtesy of Dennis Hopper. Neither character had much to do with the story, particularly Holliday, who was on camera just about long enough to be out-gunned by Cardiff in a not very satisfying showdown.The finale itself also turned out to be fairly anti-climactic. You know the love triangle had to be resolved, but there didn't seem to be the tension one expects of an inevitable showdown. With Cardiff's gun skills at the center of the story, it didn't take too much to figure out who would come out on top, and once again, it's all over in pretty much a flash.With only a few comments posted on this forum regarding the picture, I can see I'm in the minority, but I just didn't find this Western to be that rewarding. It's not terrible, but not exciting enough to score a recommendation. Maybe in the original format it might have made a stronger statement, but if you're on the fence about catching it, it wouldn't hurt to let it pass.

This is the basic western of man meets girl, looses girl.The cast is second to none. Mini Series on TV Sam Elliott plays Hugh Cardiff an ex-Buffalo hunter. With his shooting skills he starts the following the shooting competitions.At the shooting competitions he meets Ben Johnson and Timothy Scott, the 3 become good friends.The threesome get into trouble and help each other out. For a historical flare, the threesome even meet Wild Bill Hickok and go into business together. While long for a movie, if you like to just sit down and watch one for a couple/three nights this one is a great one.