Johnson County War

Nice to pass the time with this version of the Johnson County Wars in Wyoming, one of the major cattle wars of the 19th Century. Most of the acting is pretty good. Burt Reynolds is a bit over the top. Looks like the cast had fun dressing up. Pretty scenery. The UK ranching baron is a bit too prissy. So it was a Wyoming story shot in Canada, and yet another cowboy movie in which someone sang "The Cowboy's Lament," a song first published in 1910. The Johnson County War ran from 1889 to 1893.

This is a GREAT movie!! - The previous comment does not do it justice. In the steps of "Conagher," "One Man's Hero" (also Berenger), and "The Jack Bull," this movie speaks volumes about integrity, personal accountability & human worth. The ending is AWESOME. Could you do it? Is anything worth that much of you? If it matters, - if anything upright, ethical holds any position of importance to your psyche, you will understand when you see this motivating, way-overlooked treasure.

Tom Berenger is GORGEOUS! He plays a very strong character worthy of praise & remembrance!

Luke Perry's role far outplays '90210' and compares favorably to "8 Seconds."

The plot is easy to follow and enticing. The filming is magnificent, intelligent and complimenting of the plot & actors' accomplishments here.

A GREAT MOVIE!!

I really wanted to like this film, with it's strong cast, and a script co-written by Larry McMurtry, tackling the fascinating true story of the Johnson County War, where big ranchers and upstart smaller farmers engaged in one of the old west's most infamous range wars. There has been numerous film versions of this range war, "Heaven's Gate" being the most notable, but none have been great adaptation of the story. This film version boasts a strong cast that includes Tom Berenger, Burt Reynolds, Rachel Ward, and Michelle Forbes (there's also Luke Perry), but I was mostly excited by the involvement of Pulitzer Prize winning author Larry McMurtry, who has previously written his own romanticized adaptations of other old west figures Billy the Kid, Calamity Jane, and Wild Bill Hicock. I was hoping this TV movie was going to have McMurtry's same melancholy romanticized vision of the old west, but it sadly did not live up to his best adaptations (i.e. "Lonesome Dove" or even "Buffalo Girls"). The true story of the Johnson County War is not as clear cut as most films versions make it out to be. Usually the big ranchers are portrayed as the black hat villains trying to chase out the smaller rangers and farmers, playing into a familiar class warfare story of the powerful picking on the "little guy." The truth of the situation was that the these little guys were actually stealing a significant amount of cattle from these larger rangers. In real life, both sides had legitimate grievances with the other and both sides had their own villains, which would have been an interesting story to tell, but this film does not tackle that. It instead follows the standard class warfare story, which if done well could have been an entertaining old west tale, but it ends up feeling like a pretty standard Ted Turner made-for-cable western. Douglas Milsome, who's worked with the likes of Stanley Kubrick and Michael Mann (and also the horror movie version of Rumpelstiltskin), provides the film with some striking photography, but overall I found myself disappointed with what ends up being a routine oater.

I enjoyed the movie for its entertainment value. But a movie titled The Johnson County War should endeavor to tell the story of its namesake. Especially since it is not a well known event and viewers are likely to accept the movie as historically accurate.

The basics are intact. The cattle barons declared war on the small ranchers over the issue of open range. The small ranchers were liberally declared rustlers in order to justify prosecuting them with extreme prejudice. A small army of mercenaries was hired to do the dirty work. Those familiar with the history of the Johnson County War know that a rancher named Nate Champion stood off the mercenary army in his cabin for a considerable length of time.

The movie takes that event and fictionalizes it with Tom Berenger's Cain Hammett making that stand instead of Nate Champion. The details of that fight are fairly accurate. But Berenger's character is fictitious, with subplots about brothers and spouses. It is not Nate Champion by another name. So it makes little sense to me to make a movie about a historical event and pretend that it happened to someone different. Kind of like Custer's Last Stand with some fictitious guy named Clyde Smith as the leader of the Cavalry instead of Custer.

The movie makes for a good western. But Nate Champion's story is entertaining in itself. Christopher Walken portrayed him in Heaven's Gate, which is also about the Johnson County War. But in that movie, director Michael Cimino took the names of Jim Averill and Ella Watson, two small ranchers hanged early in the dispute, and assigned them to the Marshall portrayed by Kris Kristofferson and the prostitute portrayed by Isabelle Huppert.

The Johnson County War is a little known and interesting part of American history. Too bad that movie makers play so fast and loose with the facts.

Johnson County War: The Series Based on a true event, is in a class with the likes of movie greats, Tom Horn, Lonesome Dove or The Jackbull. Coherent writing, attention to detail of the period for which the series took place, i.e.: clothing, set decoration, realism. Staring Tom Berenger & Luke Perry who play brothers, are completely believable cowboys comfortable on horseback or living in the back and beyond, play out this drama. The acting was excellent for the entire cast with the benefit of the great Wyoming vistas. A seeming look at the way it must have been, because it feels real.