To complicate matters further, Chris Cooper is a sheriff seeking to arrest Urich for murder. His pregnant wife Glenne Headly for some reason then leaves town, and Cooper's deputy Barry Corbin is dispatched to find Cooper to tell him his wife is gone. Cooper does manage to find Headly, thousands of miles away in Nebraska, where Headly has abandoned her infant son at Anjelica Huston's ranch. Huston will apparently hire anyone, as she takes in Cooper, Diane Lane, and Lane's would-be boyfriend Sweeney.
Meanwhile, Duvall and Jones finally establish their cattle ranch in Montana. One of the principals dies, which causes the other principal to engage on an unproductive thousands-of-miles adventure.
How others will see it. Lonesome Dove was a rating bonanza for CBS, and received widespread praise from critics. Its success led to four miniseries sequels and two television series, which fell short of the production values, cast, and gravity of the original.
Lonesome Dove cleaned up at the Emmy Awards, where it received seven wins and 19 nominations. Perhaps because they cancelled each other out, Duvall, Jones, Huston, Lane, Glover, and Headly were nominated for Emmys but failed to win. Somehow, the Emmy for best miniseries went to War and Remembrance, which has created little stir since its first showing.
Today at imdb.com, Lonesome Dove has a fairly low 13,700 user votes but an extremely high user rating of 8.8 out of 10. The ratings are consist across all adult demographics, although non-U.S. voters grade it slightly lower than U.S. voters, 8.5 versus 9.0. Most viewers appreciate the top-notch cast and cinematography, and ignore the more unlikely aspects of the plot.
How I felt about it. Back in the late 1990s, when I was getting paid too much money to sit at my workstation for six hours and code for two hours, I was obliged to attend various training classes. One of those starred a gregarious character who proclaimed that Lonesome Dove was "the greatest movie ever made." Never mind that it technically wasn't a movie at all, at least not a theatrical movie, and was instead a made-for-television miniseries.
The instructor was wrong. It's not even the greatest western ever made, not by a long shot. Certainly, Red River (1948) is superior. But Lonesome Dove is a good six-hour sit, if you manage to see it sans those annoying commercials that imply you will acquire an adoring hot babe if only you shell out 40K for a new luxury car.
The cast is remarkable. Indeed, this is its major selling point. With Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones in the lead roles, and Diane Lane and Anjelica Huston in the female supporting roles, it looks like an A-list movie. Throw in familiar faces Danny Glover, Chris Cooper, Robert Urich, Steve Buscemi, Glenne Headly, Barry Corbin, and, yes, Ricky Schroder, and you have significant star power.
The coincidences are a bit much for me. Duvall just happens to pass through a small town on the same day that they will hang his most hated outlaw, Blue Duck. Headly just happens to reach Huston's ranch on the same night that she will deliver her baby. Huston just happens to be the woman that Duvall is travelling thousands of miles to see. Headly, who for some reason has abandoned her husband and son to travel pregnant a great distance to see some man she hasn't known in years, actually reaches him only to see him in jail shortly before his hanging. The murder spree of Urich's gang crosses paths with the Duvall and Jones cattle drive.
I'm sure, if I thought about it, I could come up with more unlikely coincidences. Instead, I will turn my attention to Larry McMurtry's indifference to his characters' lives. They die by the dozen, and really, they should all move to Huston's ranch, because the only person who dies there is a zombie who was kicked by his horse.
I am curious about Diane Lane's character. She can have any man she wants, so she first chooses an abusive drifter, then pines after another drifter and rascal. Still, she is the nicest person around. It's true that she lives in a tent, but she can't travel in a tent, yet her fair skin is never sunburnt. All the cowboys, who appear to have no shelter, also don't get sunburnt despite exposure to the summer sun for 15 hours each day.
At Lonesome Dove, why do you dig a well after you have been there for more than ten years, and just days before you leave for Montana? Would the owner of a small town bar burn himself and his bar to the ground because his pretty prostitute has left town? Would only that bar burn? Would they not rebuild it after a year?
It is true that the A-list cast has its charm, and Duvall is as engaging as ever. But this only takes a film so far. It seems that everyone except perhaps Ricky Schroder and Diane Lane would have been better off if they had just stayed at Lonesome Dove.