The Kid

The public’s fascination with William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, seems boundless. The cheeky conceit of actor-turned-director Vincent D’Onofrio’s The Kid is that the titular character is a fictional youngster named Rio (Jake Schur), who along with his sister Sara (Leila George) falls in with Billy (Dane DeHaan) just before the latter is captured by Sheriff Pat Garrett (Ethan Hawke). Rio’s story is folded into the last months of Billy’s life, when the outlaw escaped custody, killing a couple of lawmen in the process, only to be tracked down again and ambushed by Garrett. Rio not only watches as the final act of this tragic drama plays out, but also must decide which of the two men to trust when Sara is abducted by their evil uncle (Chris Pratt) and dragged back to meet a horrible fate in a hellish bordello—unless he can somehow manage to rescue her. The Kid thus becomes a morality play as well as a coming-of-age story, all wrapped up in the historical context of the Bonney-Garrett showdown—an ambitious load for a movie to carry, and D’Onofrio (who also takes on a supporting role as a sheriff) is not entirely up to the task. The film tends to be sluggish, emphasizing the pretentious writing by allowing for long pauses in dialogue delivery. And while the performances of Hawke and DeHaan are strong, the film never achieves the Unforgiven-like profundity it clearly is aiming for. Still, this is an interesting failure that should be considered a strong optional purchase. (F. Swietek)