It’s 1781, and the once-quiet frontier town of Abilene, Kansas has become a dangerous place in which to live. Its residents can’t walk through town without the fear that they or a loved one might catch a stray bullet. Mayor George Knox (Kris Kristofferson) is at his wits’ end, and doesn’t know what to do. That is, until legendary gunslinger Wild Bill Hickok (Luke Hemsworth) rides into town. After witnessing Hickok quickly extinguish an escalating situation at a poker table in the local saloon, Knox offers Hickok the job of marshal, asking him to help make Abilene a quiet, peaceful place once again.

Hickok is reluctant as first, but ultimately accepts the position. He implements some controversial rules, such as no firearms inside the city limits, and some start to question the decision to hire this outsider to be the new lawman. Local saloon owner Phil Poe (Trace Adkins) pretends to be on-board with the decision, but this new lawman isn’t as easy to corrupt as his predecessor. Poe is engaged to the beautiful Mattie (Cameron Richardson), but is unaware that she has a past with with Hickock. Learning this would only further fan the flames between Poe and Hickok. And to make matters worse, Mattie’s young son Joey (Hunter Fischer) idolizes Wild Bill, and wants to be a lawman himself when he grows up.

Poe’s resentment of Hickok continues to grow when he suggests that Poe not water down his whiskey and not over-serve his customers. As more of his patrons end up in jail, and his business is affected, Poe starts plotting ways to eliminate this nuisance from the town. Meanwhile, with tensions rising, it’s only a matter of time before things boil over. The mayor brings on a second marshal, John Wesley Hardin (Kaiwi Lyman-Mersereau), to help, but will that be enough to stave off the storm that’s brewing?

Hickok opens with an exciting frontier battle, with bullets flying everywhere. However, it then cuts to 7 years later, and the pace slows way down. The film sets up this premise that the town of Abilene has become a dangerous place to live, but this is more stated than shown/earned. There’s the typical western bar fight and one instance of some Texas outlaws riding into town with their guns, but it never really feels like Abilene is completely out of control. The focus of the film is mainly on this growing tension between Hickok and Poe, as well as the questions of what was Hickok’s relationship with Mattie, does she still love him, and could Joey be his son?

In addition to the opening scene, the film also includes a couple other really exciting action sequences, especially the one in the final act. These shootouts are where this movie really excels—I wish the filmmakers had focused more on making an action-packed western, rather than this psychological drama that never quite succeeds in its goal. The cast is very talented, but at times they are given some clunky and formulaic dialogue.

The film itself looks quite beautiful, with rich, detailed, authentic-looking sets. It does an excellent job of transporting the viewer back to the era in which the film is set. For the most part, I thought the film looked fantastic, but there were a couple places where I found the camera choices a little bizarre. In one scene 4 minutes into the film, Hickok is in the bathtub with a prostitute standing nearby when some men break in. The men question the prostitute, but the whole time she is speaking, her face remains out of focus. I thought this may have just been the Blu-ray presentation, but it looked the same on both discs. This choice of leaving some things out of focus on the far left/right of the screen also pops up a couple other times during the film.

Both the Blu-ray and the 4K Ultra HD disc capture the rich colors and details of the presentation wonderfully. This is a really beautiful film to watch! There is a slight bit of grain to the picture, but that helps to evoke the era. The 4K disc does not offer any kind of HDR, and so I didn’t notice much difference in the picture between the 4K disc and its Blu-ray counterpart. In some scenes the 4K version provided slightly more detail, particularly in the character’s faces, but this was not uniform throughout the film. The same audio track appears on both discs, and provides clear dialogue and a pleasant score. During the action sequences, the stereo and surround channels are nicely utilized to bring the viewer into the action.

The 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray discs contain the same bonus features—a 15-minute behind-the-scenes featurette with the director, 3 deleted scenes, and the film’s trailer. Both discs are packed in a standard UHD keepcase with a cardboard slipcover. There is no digital version of the film included.

What’s Included:

Film: (1:28:21)

4K Ultra HD:

• 2160p / Widescreen 2.40:1
• No HDR
• Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
• Subtitles: English SDH

Blu-ray:

• 1080p / Widescreen 2.40:1
• Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
• Subtitles: English SDH

Extras:

• The Road to Abilene: The Making of Hickok (14:36)
  Director Timothy Woodward Jr talks about what drew him to this project, balancing fact and fiction in the story, casting Luke Hemsworth in his first lead role, reuniting with Trace Adkins, Kris Kristofferson and Bruce Dern, casting the rest of the main characters, working with a familiar crew, and the film’s score. The featurette also includes lots of behind-the-scenes footage, and interviews with Luke Hemsworth & Trace Adkins from a slightly noisy/windy set.
• Deleted Scenes (2:50)
  Collection of 3 deleted scenes. Play All or select from “Joey Overhears the Drovers”, “Poe and Hardin Have a Chat”, and “The Fires of Hell”.
• Trailer (2:33)

Final Thoughts:

While Hickok certainly wasn’t the best western film I’ve seen in the past few years, it does have some great moments. The pacing gets a little slow in the middle of the film, and the dialogue is a little clunky/derivative at times, but the film does provide some really exciting action sequences, and is a very beautiful film to watch. The 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray presentations are pretty solid, both visually and aurally. The discs only contain a small amount of bonus material, but what is included is interesting to watch. This film is worth a look for Western fans looking for another genre film to check out.