Customer Reviews

Return to Lonesome Dove

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I once read that when Larry McMurtry saw RETURN TO LONESOME DOVE he was so enraged he responded by writing "Streets of Laredo." A Lonesome Dove fan such as myself can only speculate what kind of sequel might have been written had "Return" never hit the airwaves. Maybe the characters of Newt and July Johnson would have survived into such a sequel; perhaps the Hat Creek Cattle Company would have flourished in Montana, rather than Call having to go back to Texas to eek out a living as a bounty hunter. But I digress.

RETURN TO LONESOME DOVE tries hard, very hard, to deliver a story worthy enough to follow the original mini-series. And with gifted actors like Jon Voight, Oliver Reed, and Louis Gossett, Jr., it certainly had the star power. But instead, this sequel goes down the road of "been there, done that": another livestock drive from Texas to Montana (only this time, the animals are wild horses); another murderous half-breed villain (Dennis Haysbert as "Cherokee Jack"); and a "new" Gus McRae in the form of Ranger Gideon Walker (William Peterson). We also are given a bonus storyline centering around Gus' illegitimate daughter, appropriately named Augustina Vega (Nia Peeples), who hates her late father and is obsessed to confront Call, who she believes is responsible for the death of her mother. Throw a grumpy and petulant Clara Allen (Barbara Hershey) into the mix, and RETURN TO LONESOME DOVE comes across as contrived and as palatable as a piece of horse leather.

The cast does well with what it has to work with, and to be fair, the film does contain some poignant and entertaining moments. But RETURN TO LONESOME DOVE's most glaring fault is the fact that it was made at all. The producers should have adhered to the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Admittedly, there will never be another one like the original LONESOME DOVE. Tommy Lee Jones is, arguably, irreplaceable as the irascible Woodrow F. Call and, fortunately, with Gus's demise in the original we didn't have to worry about a replacement for Robert Duvall in the role of Augustus McCrae.

So let's just put all that aside when considering RETURN TO LONESOME DOVE, shall we?

From the standpoint of the purists, no, this is not the official-Larry-McMurtry-written sequel to his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. But who cares?! I certainly don't. DEADMAN'S WALK, COMANCHE MOON and STREETS OF LAREDO, the actual McMurty-written co-volumes in the saga, are not diminished in the least by RETURN... Keep that carefully in mind.

This movie, when seen in the right light -- without the biases that naturally arise among the LONESOME DOVE faithful and viewed, for all intents and purposes, as an independent film -- is a truly wonderful Western! The characters are compelling and interesting and the story is certainly a worthy epilog to the original LONESOME DOVE.

Woodrow F. Call, played by John Voight, is returning from his pilgrimage to bury McCrae and determines to take something back. He decides to drive a herd of Texas mustangs to Montana in order to continue his activities in the horse business. Characteristically Call would certainly do this in order to view things as not being a total waste. The story blossoms nicely as he adds former Texas Ranger, Gideon Walker, played wonderfully by a younger William Peterson, now of CSI fame, and Isom Pickett, a horseman and rancher played by Louis Gossett, Jr., to assist in the adventure. And, like the original, RETURN... abounds in triumph and tragedy as Captain Call and his compadres work to live out their dreams and aspirations with all the honor they can muster.

Members of the original cast including Rick Schroeder as Newt, Tim Scott as Pea-Eye Parker, William Sanderson as Lippy, Barry Tubb as Jasper Fant and Chris Cooper as July Johnson are joined by a great cast of newcomers including, in addition to Voight, Peterson and Gossett, Jr., Barbara Hershey as Clara Allen, Oliver Reed as the over-zealous visionary rancher Gregor Dunnegan, Reese Witherspoon as Dunnegan's much younger and impetuous wife, Ferris, Nia Peeples as Agostina Vega, and Dennis Haysbert (late of the hit TV series, 24) as a worthy successor to the Half-Breed Blue Duck in the original, the sinister outlaw, Cherokee Jack Jackson.

Okay, we all agree, then, that there was and never will be anything like the original LONESOME DOVE. Right? But if you give this one a break as a great Western movie in its own right I promise you won't be sorry.

THE HORSEMAN

I have seen all the Lonesome Dove movies and although this one is a spin-off from the others, it's still is a great story. Jon Voight plays a very convincing Capt. Call considering what he had to follow up to. I still would have liked to seen him lose his temper and beat somebody up who acted rude. (I mean who can top Tommy Lee Jones's performance?) This film like the others, really portrayed the harshness of the western frontier and the tough men who had to shape it. Although Barbara Hershey wasn't the plainswomen that Anjelica Houston was, her role was admirable as well. I found it fitting that in the end, Call did reveal his paternity to Newt and Newt had to go off on his own to find his dream. Great plot, good bad guys, and a fitting ending make Return To Lonesome Dove a must see for any Lonesome Dove fan.

After watching the sequel to one of my favorite movies of all time, I'd have to say that I have many mixed feelings. Although not a terrible movie, it doesn't come close to the original. Something about this movie really bothered me, but I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was. I think it may have been mostly due to casting. After becoming attached to many of the original characters, I found it distracting to try and adjust to a new actor/actress portraying them. I did however like the character of Gideon and wished he had been in the original movie. I also enjoyed Reese Witherspoon and wished she could have been in the original as well. As much as I like Jon Voight, his performance paled in comparison to that of Tommy Lee Jones in the original. Hard to believe Jon Voight was the original choice for the original Lonesome Dove, huh? I also found the children that came along for the drive to Montana to be a distraction as well. All in all I'd have to say that it's worth a view. After all, the cinematography and music alone are breathtaking.

I enjoyed the origional "Lonesome Dove" with Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones so much that just about any film that would take me back to the origional characters would be fine with me. I was not disappointed. Of course it was not quite the same because of the absence of the origional actors, but one quickly gets into the new ones. John Voight was ok as Woodrow once you accept him, and thats not difficult. Rick Schroeder was back for this one and did not dissappoint. I reckon Rick is an actors actor-- this young man can perform. Anyone who liked "Lonesome Dove" will like this one, unless they are super picky. The one drawback to this film is that instead of recording it on two tapes in standard play, (like the origional on 4 tapes), it's entire 4 hours were recorded on one tape in extended play. Absolutely horrible video quality on this one I'm afraid. I was not able to find it in standard play. This still does not keep me from viewing the film. Hopefully it will be released on DVD one of these days. This might be a good time to request that Amazon.com list the recorded mode, SP or EP when listing a film.

I have returned to this mini-series after over a decade. I bought Lonesome Dove on DVD a while back and enjoyed it more than I did on my initial viewing. I was not as fond of "Return" when it first aired for a few reasons: The absence of Robert Duvall's Augustus McCrae, Tommy Lee Jones not returning, and a somewhat retreaded narrative. After watching "Return" again, these elements are still problematic but the movie tries so hard to re-capture the spirit of Lonesome Dove that it does manage to succeed on its own merit. One does wonder if, instead of replacing the missing cast members with new actors (or new characters in the case of William Petersen's McCrae like character for example) it had focused on what it did have, namely Rick Schroeder and the Hat Creek Outfit. There are some early appearances of some soon to be famous actors such as Reese Witherspoon and Dennis Haysbert. I might have liked this better if it had just been its own film instead of an over-reaching sequel.

Return to Lonesome Dove can best be summed up in one simple sentence. Larry McMurtry had nothing to do with this project. He wrote no book under this title, or a teleplay of any kind. Yet, somehow, Hollywood got a hold of the rights to a sequel and did their work. Both the original novel and miniseries were so successful...how could Hollywood not do a sequel, right? Many viewers will find this particular sequel to be much more palatable than McMurtry's offering, Streets of Laredo. "Return," is the epitome of Hollywood, with it's tying up of all lose ends and trite, happy ending. We are given the same fantastic visuals, the same musical score and some of the same cast as we got in the original miniseries, including Rick Schroder as Newt Call. But more than that...we are given another drive to Montana, using horses this time, instead of cattle. We are given an accomplished black tracker to guide the herd, named Isom (Louis Gossett Jr.) instead of Deets. We are given a villainous, half-breed again, named Cherokee Jack, (Dennis Haysbert) in place of Blue Duck. We are given an affable, younger Gus McCrae, in the form of ex Ranger, Gideon Walker, (William Petersen) whom Call reluctantly hires to aid in the drive. Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Montana, Newt becomes involved with a neighboring rancher's young wife, which eventually escalates into a range war, drawing in Call and the Hat Creek Outfit. Throw in the sassy Clara Allen, (Barbara Hershey) and a Mexican seniorita who turns out to be Gus McCrae's daughter, and you have a true Hollywood sequel...that is, Lonesome Dove, warmed over, with a few cliché plot twists. Probably the most disappointing aspect of this movie is the portrayal of Woodrow Call, by John Voight. While Voight is a fine actor, the depiction of Call strays far from the man McMurtry envisions for us in the original story. This is best illustrated by Call's comment, "a man should leave more behind than a sorry piece of wood stuck in some dirt." This explains his motives for driving the wild herd of horses to Montana, but its not the Woodrow Call that fans of the Lonesome Dove miniseries and novels have come to care about. While McMurtry's Call struck out for Montana to find adventure, he wasn't interested in things like his own legacy, as the Call in "Return" seems to be. This probably explains Call's sudden decision to acknowledge Newt as his son in the finale of the movie. It's a shame, really, that this movie was made. If it had not been and McMurtry had been left to his own devices, Streets of Laredo, might have turned out better. But history has taken it's course and we've been left with two mediocre sequels to a masterpiece, (one official and one not) and two sad television series that deserved to fail miserably as they did. In the end, the viewer's choice prevails. If you like a typical Hollywood western with a cliché story, action, romance and a contrived, satisfying ending, Return to lonesome Dove is the movie for you. Personally, I find more value in the creations of the original author.

"Return to Lonesome Dove," the Lonesome Dove sequel NOT written by Larry McMurtry, at least offers us one thing McMurtry cheated us out of: a scene in which Woodrow Call finally accepts Newt Dobbs as his son. Coming at the very end of the story, the scene is beautifully written and played to absolute perfection by Jon Voight and Rick Schroder. Unfortunately, there's an awful lot that comes before this moment, and not much of it is particularly fresh or interesting. This movie begins where the first Lonesome Dove left us, with Call in Texas and everyone else in Montana. It spends an inordinate amount of time getting everyone back together, and very little time showing interaction between the characters--Call, Newt, Clara, July Johnson, etc.--that we really care about. Much of the action is a tired rehash of what McMurtry gave us in the original story. A lot of new characters are invented for this movie, and although they're played mostly by first-rate actors--William Petersen, Louis Gossett Jr., Oliver Reed, Reese Witherspoon--they simply lack the fascination and authenticity of the characters created by McMurtry himself. The worst is Nia Peeples as Agostina Vega, the illegitimate daughter of the late Gus McCrae. Everyone keeps talking about how much Agostina looks and acts like Gus. But not only is Nia Peeples nothing like Robert Duvall, she is at best a mediocre actress. There are some good performances here--particularly by Schroder as the sweet-souled, lovable Newt--but also a lot of boring stretches between the good parts.

Don't overlook this simply because Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones aren't "in the picture." This is a wonderful depiction of the magic of Larry McMurtry and Jon Voight does a great job as Captain Call.
I bought this about one year ago and I'd recommend it to any "Lonesome Dove" fans.

The first scene of the movie consists of a young woman shooting up Gus's marker. It turns out that Gus mistakenly got her mother killed in a shootout in Mexico, when he (Gus) was involved? with her mother. The plot has some good points in that the cowboys are Mexican "Vacqueros", but the producer takes great pains to show that the Vacqueros are better than the American cowboys. I won't try to describe the whole plot, but will say this film does not "fit" well with the other "Lonesome Dove" films because it twists most of Larry McMurtry's views into "modern, politically correct, viewpoints". Having said all that, I would still reccommend the movie as it does have some good action and plot lines.