Tombstone Review

The production history is visible on screen. George Cosmatos took over weeks into filming after Kevin Jarre was removed, the script was cut down in a hurry, and the second half moves through the vendetta ride in a series of montages that feel like a longer film compressed. Kurt Russell is solid and occasionally stiff as Wyatt Earp, and the romance with Dana Delany never once justifies the running time it takes.

What survives all of it is Val Kilmer. His Doc Holliday is playing three things at once, dying, bored and enormously entertained, and every line he is given becomes quotable in his mouth because he refuses to deliver any of it straight. The gunfight at the O.K. Corral is staged with unusual restraint, quick and confused and over in half a minute, which is closer to the historical record than most versions bother with. As a film it is lumpy and overstuffed. As a performance it is essential, and it is why people still quote this thirty years on.