King of Texas

This short treatment does well in general by the story and by the characters. The characters have a certain frontier eloquence and it isn't till John Lear goes mad-- a bit too suddenly-- that you really miss Shakespeare's poetry. The script tries to compensate for the lack of weight in the storm scene by introducing a more pedestrian revelation: Lear comes to understand that peace is better than fighting. Well, duh.

On the positive side, we have sisters who are a little better motivated and less one-dimensionally monstrous than we're accustomed to and we have an interesting back-story (with an echo of the Biblical daughters of Zelophehad) in which Lear had intended his son to be heir but the son died in battle leaving only daughters to inherit.

Somehow we manage to meet a pretty full cast of characters, and they all seem natural occupants of free Texas, where the inhospitable desert separates warring ranches the way Shakespeare's heath separated the little fiefdoms. The story unfolds quite naturally too, with a creditable amount of the original complexity preserved.

The main weakness is the musical score, routine at best where the Texan setting provided the opportunity for something more distinctive and memorable.

I have down the story of 'King Lear' since I was ten years old and I think that 'King of Texas' is very much like it. Suzannah, the eldest daughter played by Marcia Gay-Harden, is very much like the character of Goneral in 'King Lear' who she is meant to be. Lauren Holly portrays the other evil daughter Rebecca somewhat differently from her original character Regan. The one good daughter Claudia (played by Julie Cox) is almost exactly like Cordelia, her original. But Instead of Kings, Earls, and Dukes, they are all landowners, who fight over land. Other than the story is very similar to the original except at the end there are a few things that happen to some of the characters (where they meet their end) that are very different. Matt Letscher, who plays Emmett one of the villains that is based on one of Shakespeare's most interesting villains named Edmund, gives an awesome performance. He also played a great villains in 'The Mask of Zorro', I don't know a whole lot about him, but I hope he becomes a big star. Patrick Stewart is so Lear, you can hardly tell the difference. This movie rates a 9/10.

I watched this movie on TV last night, I went in blind, all I knew was it was a re-imagining of Shakespeare's King Lear and it starred Patrick Stewart and Roy Scheider. That was enough for me, so I gave it a chance and was pleased I did.

Roy Scheider is simply wonderful here, stealing the movie right from under the nose of Patrick Stewart, which is no easy feat (even with his dodgy accent) because Stewart is on top form here too.

Your heart just goes out to him. You just want to help him. One complaint I did have was, he gets so far gone in such a short amount of time.

A good effort and worth a watch at least once.

Excellent performance by all actors, most especially Patrick Stewart. The emotional range is wide. Very moving film indeed. A film worth watching.

. . . Better than Mel Gibson doing "Hamlet."

Good performances all around, especially by Stewart. It is unfortunate, however, that nothing could be done about his accent. Stewart has a fine voice. Trouble is he's, well, English. I think they would have been better off leaving things as they were. The Southwestern overlay sometimes distracted from the dialog by generating unintentional humor. If I could buy a Frenchman named "Jean Luc" with an English accent for seven years on TV, I'd probably be willing to accept an English landowner in North America. There were enough of them, after all.

Accents notwithstanding, the film is well worth seeing. The plot line remains intact and the direction is solid. I hope it makes it to DVD.