Lonesome Dove (1989)
Review by HTQ4
Film:
DVD:
Soundtrack:

Written by Bill Wittliff, based on the novel by Larry McMurtry
Directed by Simon Wincer
Original Music by Basil Poledouris

Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Duvall, Danny Glover, Diane Lane, Robert Urich, Freddie Forrest, Rick Schroder, Anjelica Huston and Chris Cooper

Features:

• Interview with McMurtry
  
• Interview with Executive Producer Suzanne de Passe
  
• Western Historical Trivia and Game
  
• Cast & Crew Bios
  
• Production Notes
  

Gus McCrae (Duvall) and Captain Woodrow Call (Jones) have retired from the Texas Rangers and settled down to a sleepy life in Lonesome Dove, Texas. Gus has made a life out of playing cards and drinking at the old saloon. He has also found a comfortable relationship with Laurie (Lane), the local whore there, as well. One day, their old buddies, Jake Spoon (Urich) and Joshua Deets (Glover), show up running from the Law in Arkansas talking up their dreams of starting a cattle ranch in Montana, so off they all go. Jake promises to take Laurie to San Fransisco, so they ride alongside the herd for a ways. Along the way, Jake gets tired of Laurie and leaves her alone to go gambling in one of the towns nearby where she winds up getting kidnapped by Blue Duck (Forrest), an Indian who managed to avoid capture by McCrae and Call for years. And the plot gets more complex from there.

This mini-series is one of the strongest in American television history. The story is captivating and the cast is exceptional. This is arguably Duvall's finest work. There is not one moment in this entire six-hour series where his character falters. Jones is perfect as the quiet, sullen Capt. Call and even though he is a hard man, Jones manages to make you feel pity and pride for his character along his journey. Diane Lane's Laurie is strong, and her relationship with McCrae goes some interesting and dangerous places throughout this story. She is more than up to the task. Huston, Glover and Schroder are all perfectly cast. If there are two weak spots to the casting they would be Urich and Forrest. Urich was inconsistent as Spoon, and he seemed unable to make the leap necessary to make his arc believable. Forrest was not able to clearly convey a sense of reckless danger in his Blue Duck. On a more positive note, the series is beautifully filmed and I have it on good authority that the authenticity of costumes and weaponry is second to none.

The DVD is a somewhat weak treatment of the source material. On the first side of this double-sided DVD is an interview section with the author, Larry McMurtry. The arrangement of this material on the DVD is a little contrived. When you select this, rather than being taken to an interview video (even one that is edited together in one long stream), you are taken to a screen with a list of questions; as you select each question, a video clip of McMurtry's answer plays. I guess they couldn't afford to hire someone to edit these clips together or something. It would be one thing if you actually learned something interesting from the clips, but and McMurtry is hard to understand; partly because he mumbles his answers, but mostly because the audio quality is so bad to begin with. The interview with Executive Producer Suzanne de Passe is no different. The setup of these interviews becomes annoying very quickly. The only other feature on side one is a trailer for Lonesome Dove.

Moving on to side two, we find a collection of "Western Historical Trivia" which, although fairly shallow, is quite interesting to read. There are about 20-25 slides of information to dig through. The payoff, if you pay attention while reading these, is you do well at the "Western Historical Trivia Game" which does ask some questions that make you stop and think. Rounding out this side are the obligatory Cast & Crew bios and the Production Notes section. If they had taken the text of the Production Notes section, had them narrated, stuck some behind the scenes clips and the interviews with McMurtry and de Passe from side one, they would have the makings of a really nice montage. Instead, you have to read these notes yourself and simply imagine a nicer presentation. I will say this for the DVD treatment: the editing job is impeccable. You get the feeling that there were no commercial breaks in this production. I got about halfway through the first side when I realized that it didn't feel like a mini-series at all. This alone pushed it to two cups instead of one cup for the DVD side of things.

Poledouris has composed a rather touching score to this story. He doesn't have seem to suffer from the difficulty that some composers have with the over-repetition of one theme in a soundtrack. This is remarkable given that there is six hours of material to cover. The score is simple and elegant and neither takes away or smothers the story being told.

If you are a fan of the Western genre, this DVD is worth owning on its own, but wouldn't be worth buying the whole set for. Try to pick it up as a separate item to add to your collection.