REVIEW: LONE STAR (1996)
Finally got around to see "Lone Star." It's hard to find a word to describe it since I'm still totally overwhelmed, awestruck. I guess the word is "BIG", like a huge object struck in my face. It's a funny way to describe a movie, but my still-pounding heart can prove my reaction to it. It's perhaps the most complicated film I've seen since I saw "Chinatown" last year (on video of course).
The central character Sam Deeds (Christ Cooper), is the new sheriff in a small Texas town. Early on we are told that his deceased father, Buddy Deeds (Matthew McConnaghey), was a legend in this town carrying the same badget 40 years ago. Yet somehow Sam's resentment to him and certain rumors about Buddy's old deeds make us wonder. This suspicion is backed by a skeleton discovered in the deserted area outside the town that belongs to the town's sheriff before Buddy, the much feared and hated Charley Wade (Kris Kristofferson), an old fashioned small-town sheriff who's done every bad thing you've heard of in western movies, from squeezing money from local business (legal or otherwise) to killing whoever he feels like. Haunted by his own emotional baggage, Sam digs into the whole murder business, trying to tear down the idol worshiped by the town, and the deeper he goes, the more skeletons come to see the daylight.
In the mean time, we get to know a couple of other families in town, including Sam's high school lover Pilar (Elizabeth Pena), a widowed school teacher, and her mother, plus Otis Payne, an old black bar owner who may have witnessed the murder 40 years ago, and Colonal Payne, Otis' son who has his own problems with his father. And that's just the main players in this movie. It is impossible to recap the plot in a couple of paragraphs so I might as well give up trying. It's simply dazzling to create such intricate and interwound storyline within a seemingly "usual" plot of a murder mystery. What's more mind-boggling, however, is the deep and complex emotional relationship between the characters, which is presented clearly, delicately, smoothly and subtly. There are a handful of parallel storylines connected with each other by the long-passed murder, linking both the past and the present.
And just when you think it can't get any more complicated, the writer/director/producer John Sayles stuffs in more social commentary about racism and racial division, corrupt politics, people's tendency to make legends out of their needs, the Mexican heritage of Texas, etc. etc. The amazing thing is that none of these topics feel forced and detatched from the story, because the core is still about the characters and how the past sins of their fathers affect them. It's about one's past that cannot be shaken off easily, which in turn echoes the history and present of America. The mirroring of personal lives and the big society is one of the heavy themes of this picture. It is also the focus on the characters that keeps our attention and makes the film successful.
With half a dozen major characters and 15-20 minor ones, it's simply amazing that almost none of them feel unrealistic (almost, with the exception of Frances MacDormand's character, Sam's divorced wife). The emotions are real and believable in a cliched setup. It proves my theory that there is more drama in reality if you know how to put them together. What's satisfying is that the writer presents the discussion, but does not cheapen it by trying to find an easy way out like so many other films tend to do. So you can't make a disillusioned girl give up drug and love life with one heart-to-heart talk. That's life. It's amazing to see John Sayles resists an easy solution from big social problem down to the smallest personal conflict.
The actors are a blast too. My favorite performance is Joe Morton, playing a successful black colonal facing his troubled feeling to his father again after years of bitterness. He handles it with such delicacy and depth that it may well be the best performance from last year that I have seen. Everyone else is all the way up there too. The romantic element between two tired adults who love each other is natural and persuasive. Both Cooper and Pena gave convincing performances. Plus most of the supporting cast.
With so many characters and conflicts, some of them are bound to be weaker than others, but there are still plenty of pearls in this pile of treature. The Mexican illegal immigrants issue could be handled better. Some dialogues are a little too politically oriented and simplistic, less subtle than others, but most of the emotions and feelings are genuine and heart-felt. John Sayles is a typical American (but not Hollywood) filmmaker. He goes for the big, big issues, big story, big emotional rides. It's miracle that the screenplay feels close to real life all the way through. The style of "Lone Star" is more or less in the root of traditional story-telling. The ending, however, is not that satisfying. I personally had problems with the big secret revealed in the end, which I thought the film could have done without. (Not that it can't be done. I read a Sam Shepherd play years ago with same theme. It's just a little too much here for this movie.)
I had much expectation for "Lone Star," and it still surprised me. It's not perfect, but anyone who can take care of so many things at the same time is more unbelievable than perfection. It doesn't feel terribly "personal" to me, but the complexity of the whole production (from the script to direction to the performances, from the certral characters to the guy with only one line) surpasses anything I can think of presently. How did they do that? Grade: A.
jun
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews