Dead Man's Walk

Some things are best left imagined, no?

The real reason this was made at all and secured such a broad canvas (4 hours) is that we were eager to revisit these people, Gus and Woodrow from Lonesome Dove.

The story is that they join up with a hopeless filibustering expedition to annex Santa Fe, the film mirrors the exhaustion, aimlessness, dashed dreams on no man's land. The tone is darker—there is scalping, torture, lepers. Young Gus and Woodrow are narrowly reduced to caricature, which is bound to disappoint, but they are mostly side-characters on the journey.

But Lonesome didn't just have the endless expanses of sky and prairie, the riding and shooting. Embedded in that was a richer journey of memory and dying, a whole mess of life already folded in and centered on the vision of women. What's more, it was the true article of myth, the eulogy a mid-19th century woman like Clara would seek in a Whitman poem.

Here, we just drag our feet through the desert and the women (the same women) are tacked on in the beginning and end.

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.

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.

Larry McMurtry seems to be turning "Lonesome Dove" into a cottage industry, but this "prequel" works fairly well on its own terms. It's mounted in good-looking style and has a first-rate whipping scene wherein Jonny Lee Miller, stripped to the waist, is tied to the back of a wagon and given 100 lashes, the first 50 by one man and the second 50 by another. When that first lash hits Miller's bare back, you not only see it and hear it -- you FEEL it!

This is a great adaptation of the Larry McMurtry novel. The script follows the novel very closely, which is the number one requirement of any film adaptation of McMurtry's work. McMurtry's dialogue compels readers to fall in love with the characters, so it must be preserved. David Arquette and Jonny Lee Miller are very believable as young versions of Gus McCrae and Woodrow McCall. Arquette has even picked up some of the physical mannerisms that Robert Duvall used earlier in Lonesome Dove. Patricia Childress really captures the role of the tender-hearted young prostitute Mattie Roberts. Eric Schweig is chilling as the dangerous Comanche Chief Buffalo Hump, and the stunt work by Judson Keith Linn when doubling for Schweig is fantastic. The sequence where he rides down one of the Texas Rangers and scalps him from horseback is thrilling and terrifying. An equally terrifying nighttime sequence involves Buffalo Hump chasing down Gus on foot during a lightning storm and spearing him with his lance. The cast is full of noted character actors including Brian Dennehy, Keith Carradine, Harry Dean Stanton, F. Murray Abraham, and Edward James Olmos. Olmos is particularly effective as Mexican Army Captain Salazar. I love this mini-series, but it should not be compared to Lonesome Dove. Every adaptation of McMurtry books is different, using different casts, etc. Don't compare them, just enjoy them!