The Hi-Lo Country (1998)

Two cowboys have their friendship tested when they fall for the same girl.

Director:

Stephen Frears

Writers:

Max Evans (novel), Walon Green (screenplay)

Stars:

Billy Crudup, Woody Harrelson, Patricia Arquette

4 wins & 4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Billy Crudup	...	Pete Calder
Woody Harrelson	...	Big Boy Matson
Cole Hauser	...	Little Boy Matson
Enrique Castillo	...	Levi Gomez
Darren E. Burrows	...	Billy Harte (as Darren Burrows)
Jacob Vargas	...	Delfino Mondragon
Robert Knott	...	Jack Couffer
Sam Elliott	...	Jim Ed Love
Sandy Baron	...	Henchman
Patricia Arquette	...	Mona Birk
John Diehl	...	Les Birk
Craig Carter	...	Art Logan
Penélope Cruz	...	Josepha O'Neil
Walter C. Hall	...	Auctioneer
James Gammon	...	Hoover Young

Storyline

An intimate story of the enduring bond of friendship between two hard-living men, set against a sweeping backdrop: the American West, post-World War II, in its twilight. Pete and Big Boy are masters of the prairie, but ultimately face trickier terrain: the human heart.

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Plot Keywords:

homosexual subtext | horseback riding | riding accident | biracial | victory in japan day | 

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Taglines:

A woman like Mona can drive men to extremes.

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Genres:

Drama | Romance | Western

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some sexuality, a scene of violence, and for brief language

Details

Official Sites:

Gramercy

Country:

UK Germany USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

22 January 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

Hi-Lo Country

Filming Locations:

Bernal, New Mexico, USA

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$17,712, 3 January 1999, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$163,810, 14 March 1999

Company Credits

Production Co:

De Fina-Cappa,Polygram Filmed Entertainment,Working Title Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

114 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Having spent a week volunteering for Mother Teresa's children's sanctuary, Penélope Cruz donated her entire salary for this film to the charity.

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Goofs

After Billy urinates on Steve Shaw and the lawyer in the bar, different shots do not show any urine on the floor or table where they had been sitting.

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Quotes

Big Boy Matson: If he ain't chicken, he sure has henhouse ways.

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Connections

Featured in Siskel & Ebert: At First Sight/Another Day in Paradise/Hi-Lo Country/Playing by Heart/The Theory of Flight (1999)

User Reviews

Hi-Low Characters/Plot are Near perfect

HI-LOW's characters, with Big Boy and Pete central, and Mona as the obsessive lure for both, were perfectly developed and portrayed. Big Boy was a prototypical strutting, macho "stud duck" in a remote west-Texas grain farming and cattle region, along the base of the sharp, towering escarpment which splits the LOW and HIGH PLAINS. Big Boy and Pete were among the WWII combat veterans returning home to find draft dodgers acquiring property and wealth by any means -- most often questionable legal tactics. This happened throughout the Western U.S., even the Mid-West and South East. Many of these accumulated great wealth, but without respect within their communities or region. That lack of respect continues for many of their wealthy families to this date among "natives." Mona represented forbidden fruit, not because of anything she controlled, because she was a lost soul out of control, trapped in a miserable marriage to one of the despised prototypes of the era, a WWII draft dodger, who was foreman for the villain's growing ranch. Sam Elliott's villain earned the scorn by becoming a totally unscrupulous wealthy draft dodger. Mona was a poor, ill-educated nearly starving woman during the war years, forced to make a choice between abject poverty and creature comforts in a loveless marriage as trophy wife to a cowardly excuse of a man. "Draft Dodging" was the one unforgivable sin for any man of that era. Sleeping with his wife, and taking her, was "morally right." The Cruz character could not have more perfectly developed and portrayed as a young Latina woman, a "Mexican" in that culture. English was not her primary language. Attractive, and especially "available" Latinas were welcome to dance in the "whites' tonks", while in most communities, "Mexican" males might be permitted to stand along a back wall. At the end, while loving her, Pete still walked away because mixed marriage was unacceptable. In remote 1940s western areas, "dime vending machines' were common.