DAC Episode 370 - Young Guns (1988)

There’s something I need to clear up before I get to the end of this sentence: Young Guns, the movie, should be called Young People Who Use Guns. I thumbed this bad boy into my VCR, expecting a detailed treatise on the age of every gun shown in the movie (at the very least, a consideration of what constitutes youthfulness in a weapon). Instead, it’s a thoroughly entertaining ‘80s-era take on Billy The Kid? Not what I signed up for when I pulled it from the shelves of The Beta Barn.*

Look, the opening credits show every member of the main cast in closeup, certifying that they are in fact pretty young. Then they shoot their guns. A lot. What are they shooting at? Possibly the horizon. Are the guns themselves young? The movie never answers that fundamental question. A promise to us, the audience, made but never delivered.

We were so shocked by this basic failure of storytelling that we didn’t even address it in our discussion of the movie. We failed you, Young Guns failed you, the gods have turned their faces away in shame. Other than that, though, it was a fun film! Listen below or find us on your podcaster of choice.

*The Beta Barn was a video rental store in my hometown. Not, as it sounds these days, a storage facility for insufficiently masculine farmhands.