Wild Bill

Wild Bill is a 1995 American acid Western film about the last days of legendary lawman Wild Bill Hickok. The film was written and directed by Walter Hill, and based on the 1978 stage play Fathers and Sons by Thomas Babe and the 1986 novel Deadwood by Pete Dexter. It stars Jeff Bridges, Ellen Barkin, John Hurt, and Diane Lane, and was released by United Artists on December 1, 1995. It was a box-office bomb, grossing $2.1 million on a budget of $30 million, and received mixed reviews from critics. Plot At Wild Bill Hickok's funeral, his friend Charley Prince recalls Hickok's final days in Deadwood. Calamity Jane mourns him especially. In a flashback, Bill and his friend California Joe come upon an Indian burial structure with a lone warrior sitting atop it. Joe, who speaks the warrior's language, says that the warrior wishes to kill Bill in order to correct his streak of misfortunes. Despite Joe's warning that killing Indians "in a religious frame of mind" is bad luck, Bill shoots the man dead. Flashbacks show Bill, then a deputy U.S. marshal, killing several men in a saloon fight for knocking his hat off, before gunning down a group of soldiers after one purposely crushes his hat. While breaking up a riot, Bill gets too worked up and accidentally shoots a fellow lawman. He then retires from the law and works as an actor and trick shooter in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. He eventually leaves the show after a medical examination uncovers symptoms of glaucoma, which will eventually leave him blind and unable to shoot properly. Eventually winding up in Cheyenne, a man named Will Plummer, whom Bill crippled years earlier after killing his brother, calls him out. To "even the odds," Bill has some men tie him to a chair and carry him into the street. After Plummer refuses to back down, Bill outdraws and kills him. Bill and Charley travel to Deadwood, where he is greeted with fanfare. He reunites with Jane, and they go into a saloon. There, a young drifter named Jack McCall declares that he will be the man to kill Hickok. Jane and Bill's friends berate him and throw him into the street. Joe then begins telling an exaggerated tale of Bill's past exploits; Bill grows upset, leaves the saloon and goes to an opium den.