Lone Star | Stephen J. Lang, Chris Cooper | excellent character drama

Lone Star | Stephen J. Lang, Chris Cooper | Simply the Greatest

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

excellent character drama

this is an exceptional film that explores race, border issues, father & son relationships, and lost loves. Chris Cooper and Elizabeth Pena are wonderfull, layering shades of shades of color on their characters. This movie ranks on my desert island dvd list...buy it and be prepared for a killer suprise ending.

Simply the Greatest

Read the other reviews - add my "me too".

The DVD may not have been put together as one of the world's greatest, but the movie has.

Absolutely not for the "crash and boom only" set.

And beware, some of the unfavorable reviews give away more than they should about the ending.

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Race, Gender and Generation all in one film.

A perfect representation of the struggles that all people face, John Sayles' "Lone Star" balances differing views on gender, race, and the age gap between generations. Using a non-linear story line, Sayles is able to jump back and forth between several tense relationships and situations that are occurring in the same town with ease. "Lone Star" takes into account the issues that numerous characters face. The film takes into account the stereotypical struggle between mother and daughter and father and son on many generation levels. Not only does the movie touch on difficult familial problems, but within the confines of the family relationships the question of race and cultural backgrounds also come into play. Border crossings, interracial relationships, and prejudice in general provide most of the story line for the movie. Sayles provides his viewers with the opportunity to witness prejudices and the power of the human ability to overcome such barriers on many different levels. He presents his audience with many stereotypes. For example, there are black people who are in a bar and get into a gun fight, a police officer when makes generalizations about a Mexican man, and the divide between parents of different races on how their children should be educated and with what information they should be provided. The story of the movie is constructed around one central character and through the people that he meets and the relationships that he develops the story branches out to uncover several more stories that depict a similar struggle under a different veil. There is the story of an Army Colonel who is at odds with his father, his son, and in turn himself. Into this relationship falls the issue of being black and how each generation has had to face it differently. There is the story of a Mexican schoolteacher who is up against her all too assimilated mother and is also dealing with her son who doesn't care about his education. The woman's mother is also dealing with her own issues concerning border crossing and the issues of being a Hispanic woman in America. Finally there is the story of the town's white sheriff and his search to expose the real life of his father, a legend in the community, a man whom he did not get along with. There are dialogues in the film which represent the issues of race at hand. A black woman soldier refers to America as "their country" and a Mexican woman who takes pride in being an American is constantly reminding the workers in her Mexican restaurant to "speak English". In the end, love conquers all and people's ability to have sympathy and understand allows reconciliation and leaves the viewer with the sense that all will be ok for the characters.

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Lone Star Review

Lone Star is a complex movie that bases it's story line on a small town, Western, murder mystery. The film exhibits excellent use of the camera, which allows the audience to get into the mind and confusion of the characters within the movie. More importantly, though, it touches on serious subjects such as racism and interracial relationships.
The camera use is quite cunning, because it allows the audience to zoom in and out of the characters mind. A good example of this is when Wade is ready to shoot Otis, and the camera changes its broadened focus on them to a closer focus of Hollis, enabling us to see his dilemma.
Another example of exemplary camera use is in the end, when we see Sam and Pilar sitting on the hood of the car under the old movie screen. The angle of this scene creates a childish dimension of the two compared to the large movie screen. Once the camera moves farther away we see them in a more size appropriate image. At this point Pilar, says, "To hell with history..." and "...forget the Alamo." They are no longer children who are incapable of making decisions they are adults now. I think that this scene is much larger than it first suggests, that it is in relation to the racial struggles that occur throughout this movie. Though they are lovers, they still have the same blood flowing through them. This not only creates a bridge between a white man and a Hispanic woman, who are in love despite ancestral backgrounds, but a bridge between the other racial barriers that make up a large part of this movies story. By the end of the movie we get a vision of morality. The director unfolds the fact that if we to get past these barriers we must first forget our past differences, and only then may we begin to bridge the gap that has been broken by borders for so long.

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