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Lonesome Dove Customer Reviews (67 - 69 of 81 Reviews)

A Hell of a Vision.
I have just finished watching the six hour Lonesome Dove for the fourth time; yet, it is a rare movie I will even watch twice. I own the DVD, and I will certainly be watching it a fifth time. Comparisons of Lonesome Dove to other TV movies don't begin to do it justice; this movie deserves comparison to any Western ever made, and it stands up well to any one of the most highly considered (The Searchers, Unforgiven, Shane, High Noon, The Good, The Bad & the Ugly, etc.). This is a story of character and nuance much more than plot and action, with many small moments that will stay with you long after the story is finished...a saloon owner grieving over the loss of his prostitute (his love)...the hanging of a friend...an attempt at telling a boy he is your son....the burial of a friend...two old warriors saying goodbye in so many words (while there is much humor in the story, there is also overwhelming sadness, and do expect very major characters to have tragic endings to their lives). Lonesome Dove is bold enough to tell an epic story (and in doing so, demytholyzing the history of the West, and showing us how brutal and painful the settling of the West really was) by focusing on these small moments. There are something like 75 or 100 speaking parts in this movie, and it is uniformly excellently cast (with the exception, in my opinion, of Angelica Huston, who I always thought seemed out of place in this Western setting). If you are wondering whether this is worth owning, believe me, you will never regret it.
A postscript: since I wrote my review I have noticed that there are a number of idiots out there unfairly ripping this movie for being shorter than the original. The original series was indeed EIGHT hours long. However, it was made for TV and had something called commericials. These had the effect of reducing its running time to about SIX hours, as my review notes. I have seen several DVD versions of this and have never seen one that was edited or cut, which is why they neglect to warn you on the box. Just get the movie, watch it, and ignore the bozo comments.

Ireplaceable and Indispensable View of the tragic West
What a great movie, an epic study of characters. Realistic, at times dramatic, at times joyful, always authentic, without pretension, ever hopeful in the darkest hours, this set of series looks so real, so straight and so honest, goes to the bones...

And what a great Cast. No overacting. No Spaghettis. Robert Duvall is in probably one of the best roles of his career, as are Tommy Lee Jones, Dany Glover, and all the rest... It probably won't help you, as you most likely won't know that German author, but it just kept bringing me back some of my childhood memories by reminding me of the many Karl May westerns I've been reading throughout my youth, at a time when everything seemed so real and so grand, epic and tragic, that I still today almost feel like, yeah, I was there, I was part of it, this was just part of me, under other latitudes, in some other time and some other place, a silent witness...

If you like Westerns and the kind of atmosphere they are likely to engender, you just can't miss this set of tv-series (six hours long), that tastes and looks so real, that looks in fact like everything but a tv-series... Indispensable and historical, there is hardly another way around to put it...

The Term Epic ring a bell?
While this movie has a myriad of stars and character actors, it falls on the shoulders of one critical character to make or break this movie.

The character of Augustus McCrae is the centerpiece of this movie and it is played masterfully by Robert Duvall. He fills the character well, as a swaggering, lazy, easy going, aging and yet skillful ex-Texas Ranger that goes on one last wild ride, to move 2,600 head of cattle from Lonesome Dove, Texas to Montana.

He is well supported by his best friend Woodrow Call (played by Tommy Lee Jones), who is resigned to play the straight faced second fiddle, but does an excellent job. Robert Urich also does a fabulous job as the dashing, but unreliable Jake Spoon (Robert Urich).

The supporting characters are also fully fleshed out and 3 dimensional, the best were the motherly Claire Allen (Anjelica Huston); the vulnerable Lorena Woods (Diane Lane), The innocent Newt Dodds (Rick Schroder), the inhumane Blue Duck (Frederic Forrest) and the caring Joshua Deets (Danny Glover).

This mini is long, so it devotes a full nights entertainment, but this soap opera on the range is some of the best TV ever made.

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