Lonesome Dove

Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel gets the depth and breadth it deserves in this huge 6 1/2 hour western saga which originally aired as a TV mini-series in 1989. The film chronicles the 2,500 mile cattle drive that former Texas Rangers and best buds Gus McRae (Robert Duvall) and Woodrow Call (Tommy Lee Jones) oversee from Lonesome Dove, Texas to the unsettled Montana territory. The first two hours are used to establish the wide tableau of characters and their relations in the lonely outpost of Lonesome Dove, which McRae terms "a little fart of a town, down in South Texas." The impressive cast includes: Robert Urich as a former Ranger turned semi-outlaw, Frederic Forrest as a renegade half-breed, Diane Lane as a whore with a heart of gold, Rick Schroder as a coming-of-age bastard cowboy, Anjelica Huston, as Gus’s long lost flame, Danny Glover as a faithful tracker, and D.B. Sweeney as a lovesick cowboy. They sound like cliched characters, but they’re not–the script which uses much of McMurtry’s dialogue wholecloth puts real flesh on these people, and the proof is in the lump which sporadically rises in the back of your throat, especially during the last two hours. Lonesome Dove is not perfect, nor does it completely escape its TV-movie heritage. But the lapses are few and far between. In Duvall’s performance, the film has about as strong a backbone as you’re likely to find, and the action rarely strays too far away from Duvall’s character. Preparing to embark, Gus says, "Ain’t nothin’ better than ridin’ a fine horse to a new country." It’s a truer west that Lonesome Dove offers: sure there’s strutting, and pride, and machismo; but there’s also pain, and compassion, and tears…theirs and ours. Highly recommended. (R. Pitman) [Blu-ray Review—Aug. 5, 2008—Genius, 2 discs, 373 min., not rated, $39.99—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 1989's Lonesome Dove (2-Disc Collector's Edition) features a solid transfer and a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Extras include a 50-minute 'The Making of an Epic' behind-the-scenes documentary, an 'On Location with Director Simon Wincer' interview (15 min.), original interviews on the set with costars Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Duvall, and other cast members (14 min.), an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry (7 min.), four minutes of 'Blueprints of a Masterpiece: Original Sketches and Concept Drawings,' and a three-minute montage. Bottom line: a classic contemporary Western looks better than it ever has on Blu-ray.]