STREET DATE: SEPTEMBER 5th
Official Synopsis:
Top-rated miniseries! Academy AwardŽ winner Robert Duvall (1983 Best Actor in a Leading Role, Tender Mercies) and Academy AwardŽ nominee Thomas Hayden Church (2004 Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Sideways) star in this moving Western drama. Set in 1897, Print Ritter (Duvall) and his estranged nephew Tom Harte (Hayden Church) become the reluctant guardians of five abused and abandoned Chinese girls. Ritter and Harte's attempts to care for the girls are complicated by their responsibility to deliver a herd of horses while avoiding a group of bitter rivals, intent on kidnapping the girls for their own purposes. Classic Western action takes center stage in this dramatic miniseries!
Our Take:
Generally speaking, I don't care for westerns; but, as with just about any other genre, when one is a good movie, it's a good movie. And Broken Trail is a good movie. More accurately, it's a TV-miniseries, but when you have a project starring Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church and directed by Walter Hill (The Warriors, 48 Hours), that makes it a movie to me. With it's gorgeous scenery and lavish production values, Broken Trail is reminiscent of Kevin Costner's excellent Open Range; it's a deliberately paced but always engaging western that is character driven and fueled by terrific performances.
It may seem at first as if Duvall and Church's characters (aided and abetted by the under-utilized but excellent Scott Cooper) are virtuous to the point of unbelievability. But soon you realize that this is simply the story of good men trying to do the right thing in a time when lawlessness ran rampant. You figure there had to be at least a few good men back in the wild west, and this is their story. Regardless of the accuracy, it makes for a moving and endearing story that, even at over three hours long, is over too quickly.
The DVD release is very light on bonus materials for a two-disc set, with only one feature to speak of. Broken Trail: The Making of a Legendary Western (23 minutes) features Duvall, Church, and Hill talk about the making of this western epic.
Broken Trail was a ratings hit when it debuted on TNT a few months back, and it's easy to see why. Granted, I'll watch just about anything with Robert Duvall in it, but this really is terrific filmmaking. Don't let Broken Trail pass you by.
RECOMMENDED!
Overall Picture:
Movie: A
DVD: C+
- Mike Spring
Editor
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