The Kid (2019)

The Kid feels special because it strips the Old West of its postcard heroism and replaces it with something rarer: a coming-of-age Western where legends are seen up close, in harsh daylight, through a boy’s frightened, stubborn eyes. Vincent D’Onofrio directs with a painter’s sense of dust, distance, and dread, letting the landscape and the silences do as much talking as the gunfire, while Ethan Hawke and Dane DeHaan bring Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid to life as complicated, magnetic men you can’t fully trust. The vibe is tense, gritty, and mournfully human—more character-driven drama than trigger-happy spectacle—but it still delivers jolts of action when the story demands it. It’s not for viewers looking for a clean, crowd-pleasing myth, yet if you want a Western that feels lived-in, well-acted, and morally thorny, this one earns your time.

The Kid is clearly trying to strip the Billy the Kid myth down to something grittier and more human, filtering the legend through a frightened teenager caught between “outlaw charisma” and “lawman authority.” The problem is it often feels like a handsome collection of familiar Western moments rather than a story that builds with real momentum, so the pacing and plotting can seem thin, jumpy, and oddly predictable. Ethan Hawke brings some weight and Dane DeHaan is an interesting, offbeat choice, and D’Onofrio frames the landscape well, but the film rarely finds a voice that’s uniquely its own. If you’re craving a sharp, propulsive Western with tight storytelling, this may test your patience; if you’re fine with a slower, mood-forward genre piece that’s more about vibe than surprises, you’ll get more out of it.