Heaven's Gate (film) - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

In 1870, two young men, Jim Averill (Kris Kristofferson) and Billy Irvine (John Hurt), are graduating from Harvard College. The Reverend Doctor (Joseph Cotten) speaks to the graduates on the association of "the cultivated mind with the uncultivated," and the importance of "the education of a nation." Irvine, brilliant but obviously intoxicated, follows this with his opposing, irreverent views. A celebration is then held after which the male students serenade the women present, including Averill's girlfriend.

Twenty years later, Averill is passing through the booming town of Casper, Wyoming on his way north to Johnson County where he is now a Marshal. Poor European immigrants new to the region are in conflict with wealthy, established cattle barons organized as the Wyoming Stock Growers Association; the newcomers sometimes steal their cattle for food. Nate Champion (Christopher Walken) – a friend of Averill and an enforcer for the stockmen – kills a settler for suspected rustling and dissuades another from stealing a cow. At a formal board meeting, the head of the Association, Frank Canton (Sam Waterston), tells members, including a drunk Irvine, of plans to kill 125 named settlers, or "thieves and anarchists" as Canton calls them. Irvine leaves the meeting and encounters Averill, telling him of the Association's "death list". As Averill leaves, he exchanges bitter words with Canton and punches him. That night, Canton begins recruiting men to kill the named settlers.

Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert), a Johnson County bordello madam who accepts stolen cattle as payment for use of her prostitutes, is infatuated with both Averill and Champion. Averill and Watson skate in a crowd, then dance alone, in an enormous roller skating rink called "Heaven's Gate", which has been built by local entrepreneur John L. Bridges (Jeff Bridges). Averill gets a copy of the Association's death list from a baseball-playing U.S. Army captain and later reads the names aloud to the settlers, who are thrown into terrified turmoil. Cully (Richard Masur), a station master and friend of Averill's, sees the train with Canton's posse heading north and rides off to warn the settlers, but is murdered en route. Later, a group of men come to Watson's bordello and rape her. All but one are shot and killed by Averill. Champion, realizing that his landowner bosses seek to eliminate Watson, goes to Canton's camp and shoots the remaining rapist, then refuses to participate in the slaughter.

Canton and his men encounter one of Champion's friends (Geoffrey Lewis) leaving a cabin with Champion and his friend Nick (Mickey Rourke) inside, and a gun battle ensues. Attempting to save Champion, Watson arrives in her wagon and shoots one of the hired guns before escaping on horseback. Champion and his two friends are killed in a massive, merciless barrage which ends with his cabin in flames. Watson warns the settlers of Canton's approach at another huge, chaotic gathering at "Heaven's Gate". The agitated settlers decide to fight back, with Bridges leading the attack on Canton's gang. With the hired invaders now surrounded, both sides suffer casualties (including a drunken, poetic Irvine) as Canton leaves to bring help. Watson and Averill return to Champion's charred and smoking cabin and discover his body along with a hand written letter documenting his last minutes alive.

The next day, Averill reluctantly joins the settlers, with their cobbled-together siege machines and explosive charges, in an attack against Canton's men and their makeshift fortifications. Again there are heavy casualties on both sides, before the U.S. Army, with Canton in the lead, arrives to stop the fighting and save the remaining besieged mercenaries. Later, at Watson's cabin, Bridges, Watson and Averill prepare to leave for good. But they are ambushed by Canton and two others who shoot and kill Bridges and Watson. After killing Canton and his men, a grief-stricken Averill holds Watson's body in his arms.

In 1903 – about a decade later –, a well-dressed, beardless, but older-looking Averill walks the deck of his yacht off Newport, Rhode Island. He goes below, where an attractive middle-aged woman is sleeping in a luxurious boudoir. Averill watches her, saying nothing. The woman, Averill's old Harvard girlfriend (perhaps now his wife), awakens and asks him for a cigarette. Silently he complies, lights it, and returns to the deck.