Red River

Red River (1988)

** (out of 4)

Watered-down remake of Howard Hawks' 1948 classic has James Arness stepping in for John Wayne and Bruce Boxleitner doing the Montgomery Clift part. Once again we see tyrant Arness taking a cattle drive 1,000 miles and battling a wide range of things. I always found it interesting when these made-for-TV flicks would come along and remake classics from the past. I think sometimes they worked to minor entertainment (STAGECOACH) but at other times you really have to wonder what the entire point was. This remake runs nearly thirty-minutes shorter and everything missing is pretty much the heart and soul to the original movie. It really does seem like the filmmakers and cast simply sat down, watched the original and then just done a cheap copy of it without trying to improve anything. Some people might give this film credit for being smart enough to not trying anything different but in the end we're left with a rather bland film without any excitement and little entertainment. I think the biggest problem is the actual screenplay, which adds very little to the original movie and what it does add doesn't get the job done. On the cattle drive there's a kid involved but this goes no where. We also have a former slave along for the ride who gets racist cowboys after him but again, this adds nothing. The entire relationship between Arness and Boxleitner has no emotion behind it and everything that worked in the original is missing here. You don't care about either men, their cattle, their journey or anything else. The entire film is just a reenactment of the original and it just isn't entertaining. Both Arness and Boxleitner sleepwalk through their roles as does Gregory Harrison as Cherry Valance. Ray Walston takes over the role that Walter Brennan originally played and he's the best thing here. RED RIVER has very little going for it and if you think it's unfair to compare the film to the remake then I'd agree. The only problem is that the film doesn't work on its own either.

I like James Arness. I grew up with Gunsmoke. Unfortunately, he doesn't dominate a scene like John Wayne, nor does he have the acting range of Wayne. Bruce Boxleitner's Garth was not as good as Montgomery Clift's, nor was Gregory Harrison's Cherry up to the standards of John Ireland's. However, these are not fatal to the movie. Dunson is the heart of the movie. If you're going to remake Red River, you'd better have a good Dunson.

Maybe it has to do with learning the right cadence of delivering your lines so that they take on real meaning, maybe it's reacting to the other actors so that it seems like you're actually listening to them.

I'm a little surprised, since Arness was a friend of John Wayne's and acted in several of his movies. You'd think Arness would have learned something. Just compare the bar scene where Dunson lays out the plan and the rules for the upcoming cattle drive.

Too bad. This movie has a great cast, with old names from the past (like Ty Hardin, John Lupton, LQ Jones, etc.), but every single member of the cast has done far better work in other movies or other TV shows.

It also hurts that the original was directed by Howard Hawks and had that wonderful Dimitri Tiomkin score.

Amazing.

I would have thought Marshall Dillon could play John Wayne better than he did. But I wouldn't have thought there'd be a reason for having him do it in the first place. The confrontation scenes called for Wayne's swaggering in-your-face style, but, despite his lines, James Arness seemed to be trying to defuse his own fight, keeping law and order in Dodge City on Saturday night.

Taking a truly classic movie and trying to improve it by having different actors repeat the same lines is basically stupid. Adding a minor twist here and there in an otherwise identical plot only makes the viewer think someone made a mistake.

As for realism, where did they get the height-challenged cattle to walk around the street? Were they all calves born during the drive? I know the actors are tall, but not that tall. And need I mention the Indians that kept getting shot off their horses while the number riding in circles uselessly shaking tomahawks never decreased, and there were never any casualties lying on the ground?

If a band of village idiots ever remake The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly they'd better keep the original music, or they'll find that only it and Clint Eastwood made the movie a legend. If anyone doubts this, they need only watch the remake of Red River to understand.

A nice story, but pales compared to the John Wayne, Monte Cliff original of 1948. Too many subplots, confusing characterizations and a wandering theme of a troubled trail drive and its boss driver...Arness is one-dimensional, lacks the charisma of a John Wayne (don't they all)...Bruce Boxlietner is a good looking stud, but could never give the penetrating characterization portrayed by Monte Cliff, a truly remarkable performance. The original offered a clean plot and built to a great conflict between a father and son...this made for TV version is action packed, but is totally unremarkable. See the 1948 Red River for a genuine treat of the classic western and Hollywood at its finest.

The last time I saw the original 1948 "Red River" with John Wayne was when I was about ten years old. I don't remember a whole lot of it other than it was a rich, enthralling Western like "The Searchers" (1956) and in no need for a remake. But, four decades after its release, it was remade…and rather poorly, which is very disappointing since its two leads were very well-cast.

Wayne's friend James Arness takes his role in the remake and Montgomery Clift's role is redone by Bruce Boxleitner. These two would later work well again in one of the "Gunsmoke" movies. And even with this mincemeat teleplay, they manage to communicate much of the spirit that the original actors did in the original film.

However, that does not make the remake of "Red River" a good movie. Rather, it's a flat and mediocre adaptation of a beloved classic. There is some nice scenery, good performances, and swell intentions, but the problem is that the screenwriters wrote this with such low enthusiasm and maybe a little too much respect for the original, as if they realized in the process of writing that they couldn't even come close to the source and didn't bother to put much effort into it. It seems like they expected all viewers to already know the original "Red River" by heart and therefore be able to close up all the holes and gaps that were being formed here. The point of a remake is to at least illuminate the original, update it, and maybe strength a few weak spots, not open new ones. There is very little character strength, no real sense of connection, gaps of logic, a completely unnecessary addition of a love triangle, and an ending that is even more rushed than the surprisingly sudden ending of the original. In short, the remake of "Red River" can be described in two simple words: boring and unnecessary.