Lawmen: Bass Reeves

All my life I've heard the stories of Bass Reeves, and it automatically makes for a Hollywood drama. The man was a legend. But every account I've ever seen about his life, always did a disservice. The movie that came out a few years ago is no exception. The cartoonish mustache, the cliched shootouts, and the unrealistic dialogue made me want my 90 minutes back. I went into this expecting more of the same.

The first thing that caught my attention, however, was the cast. David Oyelowo has never played a bad character. But then I see Dennis Quaid, Donald Sutherland, Shea Whigham, and Barry Pepper, my first thought was sheesh. You almost CAN'T mess this movie up. Turned out I was right. The acting is subtle, even if the old school southern dialect is a little strained. The character development doesn't seem rushed. The cinematography is beautiful. It's a great show all around, and the end of each episode so far, makes you want to stay up past your bed time to watch the next. Hats off to a fantastic cast, and finally a storyline that does justice to this forgotten hero.

If you liked 'The Good Lord Bird' this is very similar. Well filmed, good acting. Seems higher budget than you might expect. I'm only a few episodes in, but enjoying it. You can always tell when a tv series is based on a book because the storytelling tends to be better as does the character development.

If you're into Westerns, civil war style stories and the challenges of the mid 1800's, you'll no doubt like this. Also great to see Barry Pepper and Shea Whitman in the cast. David Oyelowo is a great leading man and brings so much to this series. Looking forward to finishing it and hopefully more series to follow.

Bass Reeves is one of the most hard lawmen of the Old West and a lot of his exploits weren't overly dramatized like a lot of other well known names of the period. He was a legit bad a**, and he deserves better than this.

The show starts of wonderfully... hence the 5/10 rating. I definitely can recommend the first 2 or 3 episodes, but after that the production quality, dialog, and even acting drop significantly.

Even from there it's not an awful show, but I just think he deserves more than what this. I'd love to see something closer to the quality of "Yellowstone" or "1883", but this definitely isn't it.

Being a big fan of both westerns and Taylor Sheridan I can say I've been looking forward to this ever since I first heard about it. It did not disappoint. It's shows how this hero, Bass Reeves, will do anything to take care of his family and bring justice to this who deservee it, even if that means working along side racists and other people he didn't like. There have been a few portrayals of this character over the years but David Oyelowo is by far the best yet. He makes what would still be a good show a great one. It's action packed and intelligent at the same time. Can't wait to see what Sheridan does next.

I love this new western series and grateful it's creators saw fit to leave the "f" bombs at the door. Please make more westerns like Bass Reeves! The actors are talented and believeable, the story line is easy to follow after the first episode, which has to give you background so you'll understand Bass and his motivations. It's good to see Donald Sutherland and Dennis Quaid. From what I've read, I understand this is an anthology and next season we will follow a new character, but I'm sad to lose the thread of Reeves. Maybe we can get a spin-off? More clean westerns would be a real treat Hollywood.