Dead Man's Walk
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Movie Reviews of Dead Man's Walk
Movie Review: A four and a half hour walk seems longer
Summary: 3 Stars
Back in 1989, U.S. television audiences were treated to LONESOME DOVE, perhaps the best miniseries ever made prior to the more recent BAND OF BROTHERS. I consider LONESOME DOVE the best western ever put on film. DEAD MAN'S WALK, aired several years later, is the prequel. STREETS OF LAREDO, which has also appeared on the small screen, is the final installment. All are screen adaptations of a trilogy of books written by Larry McMurtry.The purpose of DMW, besides being a story in its own right, is to establish the characters of the young Texas Rangers, Augustus "Gus" McCrae and Woodrow Call, here played by David Arquette and Jonny Lee Miller respectively. DMW is set in 1842, and Texas is still an independent Republic. In LD, set some thirty years later, Gus and Woodrow (Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones respectively), drive a cattle herd from Texas to Montana.
DMW does a credible job molding the personalities of young Gus and Woodrow, whether they're beset by Commanches, Apaches, the Mexican Army, starvation, or imprisonment. Even love, for that matter. The viewer can see in them the men they're to become decades later.
Whereas in LD McCrae and Call are the pre-eminent characters, in DMW the two are overshadowed by a large cast of more colorful personae. There are Shadrach (Harry Dean Stanton) and Bigfoot Walker (Keith Carradine), the grizzled mountain men. Then there's Mattie Roberts (Patricia Childress), the stout-hearted harlot nicknamed "Great Western", who accompanies the Texans' various expeditions into the hostile wilderness and, after a bath and fashion makeover, has a poignant self-revelation. F. Murray Abraham plays Caleb Cobb, a pirate turned soldier-of-fortune, who, with green parrot on his shoulder, plots the capture of Santa Fe from the Mexicans. And Lady Lucinda Carey (Haviland Morris), who, with a pet boa constrictor and a Lady Godiva-type ride, teaches Gus and Woodrow something about the nature of "wildness".
DMW also introduces us to Clara (Jennifer Garner) and Maggie (Gretchen Mol), the former a shopkeeper's daughter, and the latter a working girl with a heart of gold. In LD, Clara (played there by Angelica Huston) is a major force in the film and McCrae's life. Maggie, on the other hand, has been dead several years by then, but her son, Newt, is a character perhaps third behind Gus and Woodrow.
Unfortunately, DMW suffers from the comparison inevitably to be made with LD, and I'm sorry to award only three stars. LD moves along sprightly and is never dull. Its prequel makes the four and a half hour run time seem much longer. The characters expend too much effort literally walking their way into and out of tough spots. Both epics are notable for authentic period costuming and are faithful to the original novels. Unlike LD, on the other hand, the soundtrack of DMW is so nondescript that I didn't even notice it.
If you're a LONESOME DOVE fan, DEAD MAN'S WALK needs to be seen for the sake of completeness. But don't expect the sublime experience provided by the former.
Movie Review: Good Show
Summary: 3 Stars
Not Larry McMurty's best, but neither was the book. It was good, just like the book was good. Unfortunately, there was not enough time for character or plot development. I read the book first, so I was a little biased from the start. Worth watching.Movie Review: Part of my Lonsome Dove set.
Summary: 3 Stars
All right not as good as the main Lonesome Dove but sets the story The actors were believable to be the young rangers of Lonesome Dove actors.Movie Review: bad movie from a bad prequel of 'lonesome dove'
Summary: 2 Stars
this is a ridiculous overkill of two fascinating characters in the 'lonesome dove'. the whole 2 dvds were just a bunch of idiots kept blabbering, small talking, yammering, blah, blah, blah from the first second to the last minute, just like mcmurty's novels, all the characters were just kept talking, talking, talking in meaningless small talks, almost talked your ears off. it's so controversial and contradictory to those two characters first appeared in 'lonesome dove', gus talked and talked, but call never talked like what was protrayed in this pathetic 'dead man's walk' and the 'comanchi moon', the more logic one is the real sequel, 'the street of loredo', at least gus was dead, and call remained not just silent but more quiet. by watching this horrible movie adaptation from the original book, scripted by the author, the whole movie was doomed to be horrible. because mcmurty simply couldn't omitted those yammering spread all over his original novel, page after page, blah, blah, blah, and we have to find the storyline among those conversations, dialogs, and dug them out of those garbage-like paragraphs. watching this movie was no different. those idiotic morons never kept their mouths shut. blabbering day and night, even during the comanchi attacks. what call showed in this movie and the novel could never developed into a character like what he had become in 'lonesome dove'. because from the very beginning, everybody just quacked and quacked like a school of chickens. drive me nuts. how come these two young characters portrayed in this blabbering novel would and could have developed into the profound older characters in the 'lonesome dove'? once a moron, a coward, an idiot, always would be a one, no matter how old you have become. adding experiences and sophistication in the aging process never happened to a moron, coward or an idiot. how could these two jokes would have survived in that harsh environment is simply beyond me. at least the 'lonesome dove' movie adaptation was close to what the novel read like. and 'the street of loredo' movie was also an adaptations from the novel.Movie Review: It leaves you wanting more.......
Summary: 2 Stars
I am a big McMurty fan, I have read all four of the books (Dead Man's Walk, Comanchee Moon, Lonesome Dove and Streets of Laredo). Out of interest I decided to purchase all the movies (Comanchee Moon is not out yet though).... Dead Man's Walk is true to the storyline of the book. That's about as nice of a comment I can make about the movie. I feel generous giving it two stars even. The musical score is dreadful, and despite the storyline occuring in the wide open the movie feels cramped visually. The acting is so poor it makes one wonder how the big name stars in it ever became famous. The corny acting is embarassing to watch through most of it. The movie is slower then a hot afternoon in Lonesome Dove. I suppose if you are a fan of McMurtry it should be watched, just to say you did, but if you have anything else pressing to do I wouldnt waste the time.