Wild Bill

Macho filmmaker Walter Hill ("Geronimo," "The Long Riders") tackles Western mythology once again with "Wild Bill," a rapid-fire adventure with artsy touches that will probably satisfy neither action audiences nor the art-house crowd.

"Wild Bill's" main advantages are a quick pace, attention to authentic detail and a fabulous lead performance by Jeff Bridges as Wild Bill Hickok. Its main disadvantage is that the film is so pointless, without any focus or cohesive structure.

The funeral of Wild Bill begins the proceedings, filmed in fluid, washed-out black and white, and a number of similar scenes — flashbacks — dot the movie, as Hill attempts to explain this violent, distant, yet fascinating gunfighter and lawman in the context of his time.

First up is a quick series of gunfights that establish Bill's reputation as a quick, deadeye shot over several years in a succession of lawless frontier towns. Then the film settles into Hickok's final days after enters Deadwood Gulch in the Dakota Territory.

Traveling with his English friend Charley Prince (John Hurt), Bill meets up with former love Calamity Jane (Ellen Burstyn), is reunited with an old traveling companion named California Joe (James Gammon) and finds himself singled out by a bumbling young tenderfoot named Jack McCall (David Arquette), who declares his intention to blow Hickok's head off.

At first Bill has no idea why Jack is so intent on killing him, but through a series of drug-induced flashbacks, we learn that Jack's late mother (Diane Lane) was the love of Bill's life, and he didn't do right by her.

As a director, Hill is all flash and dash, showing off his skills rather than servicing the story. And as a screenwriter, he has delivered thin characters at best, relying on a seasoned cast to fill in the gaps.

In some cases, that happens. Certainly Bridges in the lead is at the top of his game, whether he's preening before a mirror, adjusting his flowing hair and bushy mustache; drawing his guns on several men at once, as they linger in a dark and dingy barn; or explaining during a poker game that he never apologizes to anyone — and warning those near him that no one had better touch his hat!

Also good are Hurt, Lane and others in smaller roles. But Barkin is all wrong as Calamity Jane, and some of the familiar faces in cameos — Bruce Dern as a wheel-chair-bound man seeking revenge in the streets of Cheyenne, Christina Applegate (yes, TV's "Married . . . With Children" sexpot) as a hooker, Keith Caradine as Buffalo Bill Cody and Marjo Gortner as, naturally, a firebreathing preacher — are inadequately explained and completely unnecessary.

As a movie, it's a hit-and-miss affair, and will probably only be of interest to faithful Western buffs.

"Wild Bill" is rated R for considerable violence, as well as some sex, nudity, profanity, vulgarity and drug abuse (opium smoking).