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Plot: The events of the Gunfight at the OK Corral come together via the accounts of survivors and those close to the people involved.
From Alex Cox, the unique voice behind Repo Man (1984) and Sid and Nancy (1986) comes Tombstone-Rashomon. What the title suggests is exactly what it sets out to be: The story of Tombstone, Arizona's most famous gun battle by way of the structure of Kurosawa's Rashomon. That alone should be a titillating enough reason to watch as the premise has a lot of potential. However, before you dive head first into the fray, let me warn you that the result lays all that promise to waste, courtesy of an array of problems
Primary among these issues, is the unnecessary use of a sci-fi element to justify the interview format (a format, by the way, that largely results in exposition heavy babble to fill in any viewer that may not be all to familiar with events leading up to the battle). Before the ball gets rolling, the viewers are informed that they are privy to all that happens courtesy of an intrepid group of time-travelling journalists who intended to capture the legendary battle but, unfortunately, showed up a day late. So, they resort to interviewing the survivors and, thus, we are shown the story piecemeal and via differing accounts, until all is unraveled.
One wonders why even introduce such a strict "studio interview" trapping if it then requires time travel to make sense of it. This particular approach, by the way, introduces an even bigger issue. Since the story is being told by personal accounts, the many scenes that show the events prior to the time-traveler's arrival shouldn't exist in their final product (that is to say, the movie you are watching). Setting this entirely in the past and having someone from that time period piece together the tales would of sufficed instead of this illusion-breaking plot device they cooked up. In case you're wondering, there is nothing quirky, clever, engaging, or, ultimately, useful about having journalists from the future in the mix. It is, quite literally, used as a blunt instrument to hammer a point home and, thus, a bogus bump in the road of good storytelling.
Issue the second: Bad/uneven acting makes any dialogue sound very forced. Add to that a script that is trying to sound "of the time" and you have a recipe for disaster. There are also some interesting choices in the depiction of how people speak. For example, Big Nose Kate (Doc Holliday's infamous paramour) addresses males with a female pronoun. Whether this was to demonstrate Kate's strong will or just to add some kooky facet to her character's disdain for their dismissal of her as a woman is largely unexplored (and irrelevant) as it is just a thing that happens until the movie moves on. Finer acting would of brought forth he nuances of this choice. That being said, some of the casting choices bear a fairly good resemblance to their actual historical counterparts (admittedly, a plus). Alas, the actors are largely wooden and clearly have trouble selling the overly contrived dialogue convincingly.
Oh, but there is more! Lots of production issues abound in this number. Audio mishaps range from locations having far too much echo or, worse, displaying a lifeless soundscape. Don't even get me started on the mind-boggling ADR and sound design which, on occasion, makes a passerby louder than anything else onscreen and a roaming fly horrendously distracting. Costuming suffers far less though nothing seems to show any wear which, of course, looks unnatural. The location (the famous Old Tucson Studios) looks the most synthetic and barren of ambience it's ever looked onscreen (a problem aggravated by the off-putting cinematography and aforementioned issues with populating the scenes. Oh, and to top it all off, gunsmoke comes courtesy of CGI. Oy vey.
People well-versed in the lore around the Earps and that fateful day might get the most out of this movie (even as it plods over familiar ground) but they'll also be the most disappointed because of all the missed opportunities. Wyatt Earp was not the righteous hero legend made him out to be, the politics and culture of society back then had much to do with how things were ultimately colored. Like in all real life, there was no strict black and white but there sure was a lot of grey. Though the movie makes it its core goal to examine things in this light, it does so a little too late in the game when it comes to the sci-fi plot device. Because of this, said sci-fi element comes off as a shoehorned in attempt to remind people that the issues of then reflect in modern times. This could have easily been achieved without that heavy-handed (and truly unnecessary) approach.
It is worthy to note that the movie makes its point undeniable in a scene that requires absolutely no ties to a sci-fi plot but because said plot exists that scene just comes off as condescending rather than effective. Yes, though the film rarely strays from its western setting the time travel element casts an ugly shadow on all that follows.
Conceptually, the mashup of Rashomon's structure and this immortalized (and over-sensationalized) event could of made for a riveting, realistic, and refreshing retelling. The very idea of dissecting this almost mythologized moment in history from different points of views is such fertile ground for exposing the raw, dirty truth behind it. That truly BEGS to be brought to the screen. I say it begs because this movie did not fully realize it. As it stands, Tombstone-Rashomon shambles onto the screen gasping for air and tearing asunder all of its promise, leaving the viewer wondering why they threw such immersion breaking elements into the mix. Coming off silly at times, amateurish at others, the film can't be salvaged by its intentions or its rare heights. It's a damn shame, because its social commentary is timely and relevant. There was something there that never made it to the page, much less the screen.
