From the time I was a kid in the Fifties to the present day, I've seem just about every imaginable TV Western along with hundreds of Western movies, and I'd never heard of Bass Reeves until I ran across Bill O'Reilly's "Legends and Lies" episode dealing with the former frontier lawman. Subtitled 'The Real Lone Ranger', that show made a tenuous connection between Reeves and the fictional character created by George Trendle and Fran Striker. I pretty much disregard that since in all my years, there's never been a mention of Bass Reeves in anything I've seen, read or heard about regarding The Lone Ranger, except of course, for that one program.
I had a little more hope for the picture under consideration here than what was achieved in the final product. Instead of an expansive look at Bass Reeves' career, it basically focused on a single event involving the lawman pursuing a noted outlaw in the Indian Territory near Fort Smith, Arkansas. David Gyasi portrays Reeves in a rather subdued role, showing not much emotion during the entire time he tracked gunman Bob Dozier (Frank Grillo), with the help of laid back outlaw Charlie Storm (Ron Perlman). It's hoped by Storm that he wins a pardon for his crimes if he and Reeves can bring in Dozier dead or alive, entrusted with the mission by territorial judge Isaac Parker (Manu Intiraymi). The story manages to interject a few famous names of the Old West when Dozier runs into Frank and Jesse James and their gal pal, Belle Starr. The name of Pinkerton also attaches to a Reeves posse man, with the first name Tom (Gianni Capaldi), though no connection is made to the Pinkerton Detective Agency of the era.
Overall the picture has a made for TV feel and runs under two hours. It has sort of an anti-climactic resolution at the finale, as bad guy Dozier is killed following a shootout and the body brought back to Fort Smith. For his effort, Bass Reeves receives a well deserved appointment as a Deputy U.S. Marshal, against the opposition of a U.S. Senator and a disgruntled fellow Marshal. Mention is made by way of character Jessie Winston (Ashley Atwood) that Reeves will be busy pursuing a huge stack of arrest warrants in the territory. Over the course of his career, it's estimated that the real Bass Reeves arrested over three thousand criminals, and killed a total of fourteen men. Given the scope of his career as a lawman, I thought a bit more could have been done with this production. In a way, it viewed as slightly better than a B Western of the Forties and Fifties.
I had a little more hope for the picture under consideration here than what was achieved in the final product. Instead of an expansive look at Bass Reeves' career, it basically focused on a single event involving the lawman pursuing a noted outlaw in the Indian Territory near Fort Smith, Arkansas. David Gyasi portrays Reeves in a rather subdued role, showing not much emotion during the entire time he tracked gunman Bob Dozier (Frank Grillo), with the help of laid back outlaw Charlie Storm (Ron Perlman). It's hoped by Storm that he wins a pardon for his crimes if he and Reeves can bring in Dozier dead or alive, entrusted with the mission by territorial judge Isaac Parker (Manu Intiraymi). The story manages to interject a few famous names of the Old West when Dozier runs into Frank and Jesse James and their gal pal, Belle Starr. The name of Pinkerton also attaches to a Reeves posse man, with the first name Tom (Gianni Capaldi), though no connection is made to the Pinkerton Detective Agency of the era.
Overall the picture has a made for TV feel and runs under two hours. It has sort of an anti-climactic resolution at the finale, as bad guy Dozier is killed following a shootout and the body brought back to Fort Smith. For his effort, Bass Reeves receives a well deserved appointment as a Deputy U.S. Marshal, against the opposition of a U.S. Senator and a disgruntled fellow Marshal. Mention is made by way of character Jessie Winston (Ashley Atwood) that Reeves will be busy pursuing a huge stack of arrest warrants in the territory. Over the course of his career, it's estimated that the real Bass Reeves arrested over three thousand criminals, and killed a total of fourteen men. Given the scope of his career as a lawman, I thought a bit more could have been done with this production. In a way, it viewed as slightly better than a B Western of the Forties and Fifties.