LONE STAR
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1996 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: The evidence of a decades-old murder
of a legendary town sheriff is discovered in a
Texas border town and the current sheriff suspects
his own father, another legendary sheriff of the
crime. This is a film about strained ethnic
relations, strained father-son relations and a lot
more packed into one solid and intelligently
written script. This one will probably be on my
top ten of the year. Rating: low +3 (-4 to +4)
It is not easy to pigeon-hole what John Sayles's new film LONE STAR is about. At least superficially it is a murder mystery, but there is a lot more to this film. Sayles has written a complex and textured look at life in a border town wracked with ethnic tension from the volatile combination of Whites, Blacks, Mexican immigrants (both legal and illegal), and even some Indians. This is a story of corruption and of strained parent/offspring relationships. There are three father/son pairs and one mother/daughter pair and in each case the parent has caused his offspring to resent him by some behavior or action.
The story takes place in the generally peaceful border town of Frontera, Texas. The plot is set in motion when the remains of a man killed in the early 1970s are found. A sheriff's badge is found among the bones, and so current sheriff Sam Deeds (played by Chris Cooper) assumes that the dead body belongs to a former sheriff of Frontera, Charlie Wade (played in flashbacks by Kris Kristofferson). Murdering Wade was almost a public service since he was a corrupt sheriff and vicious bully who had been seen murdering suspects. Sam immediately starts to suspect his own father Buddy (played in flashbacks by Matthew McConaughey). Buddy is something of a local hero for having kicked out Charlie Wade and becoming sheriff himself. The town remembers Buddy as ending corruption and bringing integrity to the office of sheriff, but this hero-worship does not quite square with Sam's remembrances of his father. Sam remembers his father as being a bad sheriff, only appearing good by contrast to his predecessor. The young sheriff has unfinished business with his dead father and whom he remembers with no little hatred. Sam has to dig into his father's reputation and the incidents of more than two decades ago to try to understand this new case. At the same time he is courting Pilar Cruz (Elizabeth Pena), the daughter of Mexican immigrants, whom he loved at the age of fourteen but from whom he was separated by his father and Pilar's mother. Cruz is a local history teacher who finds herself embroiled in ethnic tension at her school, a new romance with Sam Deeds, and a touchy relationship with her mother (Miriam Colon). There is also a subplot with the Black community.
Sayles wrote, directed, and even edited the film. He does a reasonable job of weaving together several complex threads of plot into a single story that very much give a three-dimensional view of life in Frontera. One weakness of the script is that the is an almost completely disjoint plot of an Army base in the town and a Black bar that George Wade would shake down for protection money. This forms a second whole line of plot sewn to the main line in only one or two superficial stitches. Some of the same themes appear in each story, but neither story really depends on the other. Together they do give a better view of this small Texas town. In each story the view includes life not just at it is now, but also how it was when it was controlled by sadistic Charlie Wade. In the main story Sam needs to reconstruct this past to find the facts behind the old killing. In the other the basis for the current trouble is also in the past of about the same time.
Chris Cooper is probably best remembered for his film debut as the young union organizer from MATEWAN. While the script calls for him to make some of the hardest decisions of his life, he does not convey very deep emotion beyond a sort of sad wisdom. It is much more interesting to watch Elizabeth Pena whose eyes seem to convey more of the sorrow and pain of her life. The role that will get noticed, though it is much smaller, is that of Kris Kristofferson as the malignant corrupt sheriff. Kristofferson is not known for tough-guy roles, but here he can be easily believed as the evil that hangs over the whole town, even after his removal from the scene. Good character performances come from Joe Morton, Ron Canada, and Miriam Colon.
Sayles has managed to turn a not-too-promising ethnic-tension plot into a film that may well rank with MATEWAN as the best enjoyed of his films. The film is intelligent and at the same time clever. I rate it a low +3 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
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