Lonesome Dove Collector's Edition

Rating NR Formats DVD Genre television series Starring Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover, Diane Lane, Rober Urich, Frederick Forrest, D.B. Sweeney, Ricky Schroder, Anjelica Houston Directed by Simon Wincer Publisher RHI Entertainment

In 1989, a mini-series was created based on a famous Western book entitled Lonesome Dove. It was a risky move, but the idea drew in talent from the big screen that normally wouldn’t be on television. There’s a reason why a project such as this would attract such top names: ambition. Lonesome Dove is a wild west epic that knows its genre, yet doesn’t attempt to copy the styles of westerns in the past done by Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, and the other legends. Besides gunfights and horses, a heart beats in every single character, and everybody gets enough screen time to have their own personal defining moment within the six hour saga.

There are too many story lines to be summed up, but everything revolves around a cattle driving trek from Alabama to Montana, all in the name of adventure. Former rangers Gus McCrae (Duvall) and Woodrow Call (Jones) just wanted one last adventure, which takes them to places they’ve never intended to go. Their friends come along for the ride, and the emotions are struck to the highest degree on all levels. Some touching human moments are great for laughing out loud, such as when some of the cowboys ford the river on horseback without any clothes on. I nearly applauded after a surly bartender insulted Gus’s age, and Gus responded by sporadically smashing his head against the counter. However, along with the good came the bad and the ugly. Treachery waited around every corner, and this film was truly cutthroat about who wouldn’t finish the journey all the way through. The majority of the people who ended up killed were kind souls, some of them children. It was good that everybody had Gus there to see them through the tough times. He reflected his kind soul by assuring everybody that nobody is to blame, and the Lord giveth and taketh away. Television deserves moments this powerful, as do some of the crummy films today.

The acting is top-notch, better than the performances in many movies I’ve seen. Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones are the perfect duo together. Duvall’s charisma is unmatched by anybody from any Western. He is entertaining, and can convincingly portray a ladykiller despite the fact that he’s an old timer. Jones counterbalances Duvall by being the quiet, strong type. With a glance from the two of them, it is obvious they understand each other. They have some amazing chemistry that a director can only be blessed to have. The rest of the cast is at the top of their game. Danny Glover is lovable as a gentle laborer, Diane Lane is a poor wreck as a woman in love with the man she can never have, and Anjelica Houston is fun to watch as the tomboyish mother with a natural gift for raising young’uns. One performance in particular is that of a very young Ricky Schroder, being so young and holding his own amongst a group of distinguished actors.

For a television series, the production value is surprisingly high. Before I realized this movie was made in 1989, I actually thought it was made within the last ten years. The locations are dazzling, and the camera work is on par with the great westerns that have made it to theaters. The producers had a lot of faith in this series, and they didn’t spare a dime when making it.

Lonesome Dove flies strong until the last hour or so, when the drive fades into a whimper. There’s a tragic point where emotions are running at an all time low, and characters find themselves without hope. There’s nothing wrong with a that for some movies, as it worked in The Dark Knight and The Empire Strikes Back. It didn’t quite work in Lonesome Dove because it almost felt like a genre change that goes into Shakespearian tragedy. After a while, the depression got incredibly serious and I was desperate for somebody to at least attempt dealing with the sadness by masking it with humor.

Some plot lines also ended on a fizzle when they deserved a bang. One in particular was that of a subplot involving a ruthless bandit who was nothing short of Satan himself. He killed several characters in cold blood (two of them children) and took pride in raping women. His ultimate fate was rushed and weak. I wanted to see this bandit get what he had coming to him, and the film never delivered.

Sometimes the plot would get too slow where I felt it was just covering up all the minutes needed in the time slot. For example, there were many, many, many shots of the cowboys running alongside their cattle. Yeah, it looks cool, but after the first ten times I see it, it starts to get repetitive.

With the exception of a few aspects, Lonesome Dove is an epic that must be seen by any fan of the Western genre. It knows what the fans want to see, and gives them mostly what they want along with a few surprises. At some point you’ll be saying, “I’ve never seen that in a Western before.”