Os Implacáveis

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.

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.

This movie inspired me to do further research. There really was a Johnson County war in Wyoming. A number of events in the film, which I thought had to be fiction because they were so unbelievable, actually did happen although the names of the characters had been changed. The range wars of the West were extremely vicious.

Tom Berenger does a very good job and is very much the hero. The rest of the cast are also very good, particularly Michelle Forbes, Luke Perry, and Christopher Cazenove. Frankly, the scenery steals the picture. The mountains and the surrounding forests and streams are incredible and beautifully shot by the cinematographer.

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.

If you love the wide open space of horse & cattle country, you'll love this mini-series!

Spoiled rich cattle barrons in the 1800's want to drive out the poor squatter/settlers who gather up & keep any stray calves they may find. But that's not the real reason they have to be driven out. It's just plain greed & prejudice.

Rachel Ward is always likable & here plays a harlot w/a newspaper-writing husband.

Tom Berenger is clearly the star of this series & is the eldest & most respected of the 3 Hammett brothers doing battle w/the barrons & trying to keep the peace. Luke Perry is certainly playing a different role here & deservedly so. I heard he didn't know how to ride a horse before he signed on for this part. You'd never know it watching him do practically nothing BUT riding in this! (Goodbye, 90210!)

The ending is too long for my taste & is very disappointing. I will not spoil it here by telling you who else is killed though.

One romantic scene I must comment on: When Berenger is getting his hair cut out on the porch by his widowed sister-in-law. Ladies, you will totally melt...