Lone Star | Stephen J. Lang, Chris Cooper

Lone Star | Stephen J. Lang, Chris Cooper | Good, realistic, and overlooked

DVDs:

Lone Star

	Lone Star Stephen J. Lang, Chris Cooper Turner Home Ent, 1999 average customer review:based on 78 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An Old Favorite

There are only a handful of movies that I find myself going back to time and again. This is definately one of them. Since it's release in 1999, I have probably watched LONE STAR at least a half dozen times.

This movie just has so much going for it. It is very well casted as the actors really are a great match with the characters they portray. The director has done a magnificent job of fading scenes from past to present and back again. But the storyline itself is what really captures the essence of the movie with its uniqueness. Living in south Texas, I was also most impressed with the accurate depiction of so many of the characters.

The movie contains several great subplots such as cultural interaction, family turmoil and small town politics, but the true focus is centered on renewed love with an incredable twist at the end. The only negative I can give this movie is that I wish Matthew McConaughey had played a larger roll. He is perfect in his characterization of an "I don't take crap off nobody" Texas lawman. This is a great movie which I throughly enjoyed and I think you will too.

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Good, realistic, and overlooked

kris Kristoferson delivers the performance of his career in the flashbacks-only portrayal of crooked Rio County, TX Sheriff Charlie Wade. When his shot-up corpse is found, 40 years later, Sheriff Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper) must confront his own past and the shadow of his father, the late, legendary Sheriff Buddy Deeds. A lot of still-hot embers are dug up as the modern-day lawman rakes through the ashes of a sordid local past. The plot twists keep coming right up until the end.

Yet, the murder mystery, interesting though it is, is not the great strength of Lone Star. Director John Sayles, a New Yorker, must have has some local Texas assistance because STAR is one of the most accurate slice-of-life films ever. As a resident of a place with nearly the same cultural, ethnic, and linguistic tensions and taboos, I vouch for the keen dialogue, sharp eye for detail, and dead-on accurate portrayals of the people and opinions of the region. The human drama and social issues add as much to LONE STAR as the murder mystery.

By all means get this DVD and prepare to enjoy STAR multiple times!

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One of the great films of all time

This is one of the great films of all time -- and I'm talkin' Casablanca, Maltese Falcon, GWTW, Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, 2001, yada yada yada.

I'm happy to say that I saw this film when it first came out at an artsy-fartsy theatre in Tucson, which means I first saw it on the Big Screen in a Small Theatre.

It was great then, and it's even better now.

This film has so many dimensions, and can be viewed from so many angles, that it's worthy of an entire semester of "Film Study 101" in its own right. I couldn't even begin to describe the way it looks at things from a familial, ethnic, racial, social, political, historical, personal perspective, not to mention the wonderful mystery that it depicts, which, alas, being a mystery, can be sustained only for the first vieweing. But, once you get past the mystery, you can watch the film for all of its other wonderful qualities, not least of which are the cinematic techniques that Sayles employs (invented?), such as his panning flashbacks, which sustain the movie's plot. Sayles is a Master, at the top of his game. And I haven't even mentioned the excellent cast and their performances.

I've viewed this film many times since I saw it the first time in Tucson. (It's like listening to Beethoven's Ninth, or looking at Rembrandt's Night Watch. Can you ever get enough?)

Believe me, I'm a movie lover, with very high standards, and this movie exceeds all of them. I can't believe that any human being with a pulse in his or her veins would not give this Great Work of Art five stars -- no, ten stars.

This is a great film, and I'm convinced that it will eventually be considered one of the best ever made.

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Top 5

When someone asks me my favorite movie-- I work retail so it happens too much-- Lone Star always goes missing in my brain. After I watch it, though, it tops the list.
The reason is probably because it concerns a small town and an archaic mystery (as you will see in the film) and this does not jump out at you; that is, until you see it and are amazed at the story and the depth.
It hits three levels. First, the sociopolitical level: the background is a town with a history divided between blacks, whites, and Mexicans. The whites are losing the demographic battle and changes are occurring in education and the political hierarchy. All this in one town where the old guard--black, white, and Mexican--keep watch and excercise caution. The second level is historical. Every oldtimer in the town has a relationship with the other that remains under the table. There were few past scandals, riots, protests, save one incident: the murder of the sherrif Charlie Wade, the man who terrorized everyone he came into contact with. The story goes that he was a loose cannon, he dissappeared, and everyone looked the other way and never looked back. Real western cliche? Watch the movie. Enter the third aspect: as they say in espanyol, lo personal--the personal. All three elements mesh here. The basis is the discovery of Charlie Wade's remains, the introduction and unraveling tale of deputy sherrif Buddy Deeds (the man assumed to have killed Wade), and his son's dogged investigation. Buddy Deed's is a legend. We hear this over and over and get caught up in it. But then legendary sherrif's son comes home and seeks out the truth. Introspective-like. Slow-like. Western-like. I dunno, Chris Cooper does a helluva job. All other actors give top-notch performances. Elizabeth Penya especially deserves credit and I do not know why she has not been cast in similar roles.
But really it all begins with a mystery and that's what makes the movie great. In short, the movie in two hours that which most writers would have made into a miniseries. And it is done in western-style slow time.
I believe young people interested in film-making would enjoy this film for how it blends the past and the present in a fluid way.

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Great Film That Needs a Special Edition DVD release

If ever a film needed a new DVD release it is this one, and I am not just saying that because I am a native Texan, this movie is great on so many levels, it would not matter which state or even country for that matter that it was set in, it is a masterpiece of great film making the way movies could be if Hollywood would give a bit more effort, the cast is above average, the script was amazing, the Directing outstanding, the only let down is that this film's dvd is just too simple with no extras, it really does deserve a double disc special edition in my opinion.

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