In most movies, the Wild West (USA during the late 1800s to early 1900) is shown as a hectic place where everything goes. Is the potrayal accurate to real life?
Since I don't know exactly what aspect of movies you are talking about, I will just give a general answer.
Movies and popular conception is mostly wrong, the wild west was not so wild. Just because there was no government, did not mean there where no laws. Different groups organised them-self in different way in order to solve the problems that normally a policy or a government would solve.
The wild west is one of the primary things studied when economics, or political scientists study what is called self enforcing contracts and anarchy. I'm not really a expert on the wild west but I have studied the topic of anarchy a bit. My main source for the wild west is this book:
It goes in the many topics, like mining towns, farmers, homesteading, water rights and so on. Its really a very good read.
I recommend you read Mark Twain's memoirs of the mining west, Roughing It. The picture he paints is humorized, but the underlying society seems to be one that is organized - there is a government, mayors, sheriffs, etc - but where respect-based murder is fairly common, as among gangsters today.