Dead Man's Walk

Larry McMurtry seems to be turning "Lonesome Dove" into a cottage industry, but this "prequel" works fairly well on its own terms. It's mounted in good-looking style and has a first-rate whipping scene wherein Jonny Lee Miller, stripped to the waist, is tied to the back of a wagon and given 100 lashes, the first 50 by one man and the second 50 by another. When that first lash hits Miller's bare back, you not only see it and hear it -- you FEEL it!

I've watched this movie about 4 times, and really enjoyed the personifications of these historic characters (albeit apocryphal).

Johnny Lee Miller and David Arquette are very convincing as Gus and Woodrow. The most memorable performance is easily that of Keith Carradine. He portrayed Bigfoot Wallace, a larger than life frontiersman, who actually outlived the firing squad at Saltillo, in a clever, poetic and humorous way. The only downer of the movie, is the same with any and all Larry McMurthy films: they're depressing as hell! Death, tragedy and sufferin'! And as with all of his films, the conquering will of the human spirit shines through. A fine example of a Western film.

Some things are best left imagined, no?

The real reason this was made at all and secured such a broad canvas (4 hours) is that we were eager to revisit these people, Gus and Woodrow from Lonesome Dove.

The story is that they join up with a hopeless filibustering expedition to annex Santa Fe, the film mirrors the exhaustion, aimlessness, dashed dreams on no man's land. The tone is darker—there is scalping, torture, lepers. Young Gus and Woodrow are narrowly reduced to caricature, which is bound to disappoint, but they are mostly side-characters on the journey.

But Lonesome didn't just have the endless expanses of sky and prairie, the riding and shooting. Embedded in that was a richer journey of memory and dying, a whole mess of life already folded in and centered on the vision of women. What's more, it was the true article of myth, the eulogy a mid-19th century woman like Clara would seek in a Whitman poem.

Here, we just drag our feet through the desert and the women (the same women) are tacked on in the beginning and end.

What a truly wonderful miniseries.I laughed, I cried and I even saw a British Lady riding nude through the desert. It scared the dickens out of the "savages." There was never a dull moment. From the time the series began to the end this band of Texans lost comrades but kept up the fight. How many ways can you kill a Texan? This picture shows you. Seriously; I really great epic to be enjoyed on DVD...all 270 minutes of it in one sitting.

This is a great adaptation of the Larry McMurtry novel. The script follows the novel very closely, which is the number one requirement of any film adaptation of McMurtry's work. McMurtry's dialogue compels readers to fall in love with the characters, so it must be preserved. David Arquette and Jonny Lee Miller are very believable as young versions of Gus McCrae and Woodrow McCall. Arquette has even picked up some of the physical mannerisms that Robert Duvall used earlier in Lonesome Dove. Patricia Childress really captures the role of the tender-hearted young prostitute Mattie Roberts. Eric Schweig is chilling as the dangerous Comanche Chief Buffalo Hump, and the stunt work by Judson Keith Linn when doubling for Schweig is fantastic. The sequence where he rides down one of the Texas Rangers and scalps him from horseback is thrilling and terrifying. An equally terrifying nighttime sequence involves Buffalo Hump chasing down Gus on foot during a lightning storm and spearing him with his lance. The cast is full of noted character actors including Brian Dennehy, Keith Carradine, Harry Dean Stanton, F. Murray Abraham, and Edward James Olmos. Olmos is particularly effective as Mexican Army Captain Salazar. I love this mini-series, but it should not be compared to Lonesome Dove. Every adaptation of McMurtry books is different, using different casts, etc. Don't compare them, just enjoy them!