Ever since becoming popular with Silverado, Costner has had a fixation on being the brooding, haunted hero. Sometimes, he does a passable job, but more often he appears self-obsessed, humorless and preachy. This film is one of the latter.
There is a significant lack of motivation to the love story contained in this hack western. Why does Annette Bening fall in love with Costner, because he knocks over her furniture and smells bad? Hard to tell.
The dialogue is awful, just awful. Costner mumbles lines like, "We better rustle up some grub," as if there is a bet among the producers that he can't get away with it. He can't. There are a couple dozen of these howlers, delivered with deadpan camp, I hope, or worse, seriousness.
The plot is pure formula, the villain lacking only a handlebar moustache and the deed to Bening's house for the film to devolve into pure melodrama.
There were some good scenes, scenery and acting, but few, and I don't count Duvall's performance among them. He was the Lonesome Dove ranger all over again, and simply a recitation of the patented hand signals and homey suckmouth delivery he's used dozens of times. He was also so fat he wasn't believable even as an old trail hand.
The clichés in this movie were uncountable (doggie, Mexican kid, fat cook, stable hand), as were the direct and indirect steals -- from Shane (cattle war), High Noon (showdown), Unforgiven (haunted hero), Silverado (leg wound, gunfight, corrupt sheriff), Yojimbo (townie helper, dog).
Costner proves once again that he's capable of serious self-absorption.
There is a significant lack of motivation to the love story contained in this hack western. Why does Annette Bening fall in love with Costner, because he knocks over her furniture and smells bad? Hard to tell.
The dialogue is awful, just awful. Costner mumbles lines like, "We better rustle up some grub," as if there is a bet among the producers that he can't get away with it. He can't. There are a couple dozen of these howlers, delivered with deadpan camp, I hope, or worse, seriousness.
The plot is pure formula, the villain lacking only a handlebar moustache and the deed to Bening's house for the film to devolve into pure melodrama.
There were some good scenes, scenery and acting, but few, and I don't count Duvall's performance among them. He was the Lonesome Dove ranger all over again, and simply a recitation of the patented hand signals and homey suckmouth delivery he's used dozens of times. He was also so fat he wasn't believable even as an old trail hand.
The clichés in this movie were uncountable (doggie, Mexican kid, fat cook, stable hand), as were the direct and indirect steals -- from Shane (cattle war), High Noon (showdown), Unforgiven (haunted hero), Silverado (leg wound, gunfight, corrupt sheriff), Yojimbo (townie helper, dog).
Costner proves once again that he's capable of serious self-absorption.