Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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80 of 87 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Piggybacks Off The Original, January 21, 2003
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."
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31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Epic As Big As The West Continues!, May 9, 2000
By A Customer
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.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
NO, NOT LONESOME DOVE...BUT STILL A GREAT WESTERN!, September 22, 2005
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
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