El Diablo (1990 film)
| El Diablo | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Peter Markle |
| Produced by | Peter Burrell Rick Nathanson Joe Wizan |
| Written by |
Tommy Lee Wallace John Carpenter |
| Starring |
Anthony Edwards Louis Gossett, Jr. Joe Pantoliano John Glover Robert Beltran |
| Music by | William Olvis |
| Cinematography | Ronald Victor Garcia |
| Edited by | Stephen E. Rivkin |
| Distributed by | Home Box Office (HBO) |
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Release date
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Running time
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115 minutes |
| Language | English |
El Diablo is a 1990 Comedy/Western film directed by Peter Markle, starring Anthony Edwards and Louis Gossett, Jr. It was co-written by Tommy Lee Wallace and John Carpenter.
Billy Ray Smith (Anthony Edwards) is a timid young schoolteacher from Boston living in a rugged Texas town. One of his students is a teenage girl named Nettie Tuleen who has an unrequited crush on him. While Billy Ray reads a story to the class by his favorite author, Kid Durango, the town is invaded by a gang of outlaws led by El Diablo (Robert Beltran), their actions mirroring the events from the story. When Nettie hears the commotion, she excitedly rushes outside, only to be snatched up by El Diablo. Billy Ray tries to intervene, but only comes away with one of the outlaw's heirloom spurs as Diablo rides away laughing. The sheriff leads a party in pursuit, only to return alone with a group of riderless horses and with his tongue cut out.
With no one else in town willing to stand against the notorious outlaw, Billy Ray vows to rescue Nettie with the help of Kid Durango (reputed to be "the fastest gun in the West") despite not knowing how to ride a horse or shoot a gun. His ineptitude is displayed when on his way out of town, his mount rears up and throws him from the saddle, the impact causing his revolver to discharge and kill his horse. He arrives by train in the town of Millennium in search of J.D. Shones, a sheriff who had apparently rode with Kid Durango. Billy Ray discovers that Shones is already dead, having been killed by the current sheriff, who is in turn shot in the back by an aging gunslinger named Thomas Van Leek (Louis Gossett, Jr.), a friend of Kid Durango who offers his services to Billy Ray and procures him a new horse. When Billy Ray reveals that he is searching for El Diablo, Van Leek calls him a fool and departs. He later returns to save Billy Ray from a group of bounty hunters who mistakenly believe he killed the sheriff.
The next day, Van Leek begins to assemble a group of skilled professionals to aid them on their journey, using Diablo's spur as a calling card. The first to join them is a blacksmith named Bebe Patterson, one of Van Leek's old friends and a former captive of El Diablo. Next, the group interrupts a hanging orchestrated by the preacher/con-artist Autolycus (John Glover) who is about to execute two men: an explosives expert named Roberto "Bob" Zamudio and a criminal known as Pitchfork Napier. All three join the group en route to Mexico, but Napier is soon killed and replaced by the Native American, Dancing Bear, as revenge for Napier having slept with his wife. After retrieving a cache of dynamite Zamudio had buried in the desert, the party crosses the Mexican border and stops at a saloon to rest, where Billy Ray is finally introduced to Kid Durango (Joe Pantoliano). However, he is shocked to learn that Durango (a mild-mannered fellow whose real name is Truman Feathers) is not the hero he was expecting, and that all of his stories were in fact based upon Van Leek's exploits.
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