Dead Man's Walk - Weg der Verdammten

This old fashioned style T.V western yarn has some brilliant actors and is a prequel to the famed 'Lonesome Dove'. The strongest aspect of the story is seeing these Texas Rangers battle it out against the fearsome Apache and (lesser known) Comanche warriors. Although the show has quite a sentimental romance running through the three episodes, it also shows more than a few white folk getting scalped; a fate worse than death (but usually resulted in the latter). The quality of the cast raise it above the normal viewing standards and anyone who enjoys Westerns will certainly enjoy. Watching this it might put the Comanche at nearly number one, as bad-ass Indians as they hone torture down to a perfection.

In this prequel to "Lonesome Dove" based on the book by Larry McMurtry, we find a young Woodrow Call and Augustus Macrae just starting out as Texas Rangers and beginning to become men.

David Arquette is fantastic as the young Macrae and really captures the gestures and mannerisms that Robert Duvall put too such good use in Lonesome Dove. I was very impressed with his performance and had no trouble believing that he was the young Gus Macrae.

Johnny Lee Miller does not fare as well as the young Woodrow Call and it is hard to believe that this is the character that Tommy Lee Jones played in the original as there is little that ties their acting styles to the same role.

Visually, this is quite well done and comes the closest to Lonesome Dove in grittiness and open plain shots. The young Rangers are surrounded by eccentric characters played with great aplomb by the likes of Brian Dennehy, F.Murray Abraham, Keith Carradine, Harry Dean Stanton and Edward James Olmos.

Strong acting throughout and a crackling good story hilight this worthy sequel and it makes a fine addition to the lore that is Lonesome Dove.

I'm a Texan and as such it's hard to take the obvious mistakes made in reference to Texas geography. One minute they're supposedly on the staked plains near the Palo Duro Canyon (in the TX Panhandle) and then suddenly they're showing mountains in Southwest Texas near Big Bend National Park. Then there's the Grizzly Besr incident. At that time there wouldn't have been any more Grizzly's left in Texas where they did once range a very long time ago. With all that said, this is a good movie and enjoyable to watch. I was impressed with how the Comanches were portrayed with some very accurate depictions of Comanche horse prowess. The acting is solid. It was nice to see it was filmed in Texas in areas where I've done a lot of hiking and camping.

Dead Man's Walk is a series based on the book of the same name by Larry McMurtry. I've read the book and found it to be OK, if a little flat. At just over 500 pages Larry doesn't get into characterization like he did in Lonesome Dove. Where we would get entire pages dedicated to back stories of characters, he merely gives us a paragraph here and there.

The series has a good cast except for one glaring short-coming; David Arquette cast as Gus McCrae. To me that would be akin to casting Chris Rock as Jules in a prequel to Pulp Fiction. The story itself is very interesting but what happens in detail is not so much. The entire first hour of the movie is almost pointless. Other than introducing the great Indian warrior's Buffalo Hump and Kicking Wolf, there really isn't anything that is that important, both in the book and in the series. McMurtry really likes killing off people in the Lonesome Dove saga doesn't he? Don't expect much in terms of emotional sine waves, it just isn't going to happen. It's a decent movie but not very memorable.

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.