Westerns All Day

[mrsl]

For some reason, the Hallmark Channel played a whole day of westerns today. Although I watched most of them, they were either not anything I care to comment on, or have commented on previously. One stood out though, a miniseries that played when I was working afternoons and evenings, so I never even heard of it. At least being written for TV, it fit the time slots and I don't think there were any cuts in it, although it ran for four hours.

The Johnson County War was a typical cattle baron against small ranchers, but with a few twists like last years Broken Range on AMC. In the first place, the bad guy was a very good looking and acting Burt Reynolds. He was a heartless SOB but good enough to make you dislike him right away. I really hate this totally raunchy look in todays' westerns, but I guess it is more true to life but the funny thing is, in this one, everybody except Burt, the bad guy, was raunchy, he was always neat and clean.

Secondly, the hero was Tom Berenger, a long time favorite of mine and I'm sorry he never became more acknowledged. Like Dennis Quaid - always steadily there giving strong, solid performances, but not quite enough to claim any notoriety.

One of the female leads was Rachel Ward who I've never cared for. As a 'lady of the night', she had a kind of quirky playfulness that I DID warm up to.

Some things happened that threw me off guard. One person was hung which shocked me, and another died for no logical reason other than spite.

So, I'm not saying to run out and get it, but if you come across it in the really cheap bins, it's worth a couple of dollars for a good few hours of western excitement.

Anne

[cinemalover]

Anne,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the Johnson County War. I think I've seen it in inexpensive DVD bins but I never knew what it was. It sounds like it would be worth checking out, expecially since I'm such a sucker for westerns.

[mrsl]

Thanks to you Chris:

I think you know by now that I don't like to recommend movies to anyone because my taste is so strange. There aren't a whole lot of women who prefer a good war movie or western over a love story occasionally, so when I like something, a lot of women are going to say I'm nuts, and the men are going to say 'hmmmmmm'. So when I review, it's only to let people know that it's not necessarily a bad movie just because it's taken from TV, or it's sci-fi, or a western. I don't like to give out too much of the plot either in case someone does catch it later. Mainly I like to critique the job done by the actors, because I'm pretty good at catching muffed lines, and stiffness in front of the camera. e.g. after all his years of acting, Robert Wagner was never natural looking. He always seemed eager to get the scene over with so he could get away, see what I mean?

Anne