Maybe I Waited Too Late To Watch This?
After seeing a series as perfect as Deadwood (and reading the flawless novel) I decided to watch Wild Bill many years later and I have to say it just fell far short of the television show and the source material. It's really a shame--there are many actors in the cast that I have enjoyed in several other films, and Jack Hill is one of my favorite directors.
Perhaps it has a lot to do with the year this film was made and the stylistic flourishes that are used. It's clearly a film from the 90's (not the best era of film-making IMO, though there are a few ground breaking movies that premiered at the time.)
I've found with westerns that the best are ones that have a timeless quality and seem fresh no matter when you watch them, like Unforgiven, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Good, The Bad & the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, etc. Even Tombstone, a flick I thoroughly enjoyed but is nowhere near as good as any of the other westerns I just mentioned, is better than this movie.
The most interesting thing about Wild Bill is being able to compare it to Deadwood and see how different the two executions are of Pete Dexter's book. I'd love to know the story behind this production, some of the choices made here are baffling (like the casting of Christina Applegate and David Arquette.)
Wild Bill isn't the worst film I've ever seen, it's just not as good as it should have been.