Lonesome Dove

Plot synopsis:
It is 1876. Captain Augustus "Gus" McCrae and Captain Woodrow F. Call, two famous ex–Texas Rangers, run a livery called the Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium in the small dusty Texas border town of Lonesome Dove.
Working with them are Joshua Deets, who is an excellent tracker and scout from their Ranger days, Pea Eye Parker, another former Ranger who works hard but isn't all too bright, and Bolivar, a retired Mexican bandit who is their cook. Also living with them is the boy Newt Dobbs, a seventeen-year-old whose mother was a prostitute named Maggie and whose father may be Call. Jake Spoon, a former comrade of Call's and McCrae's, shows up after an absence of more than ten years. He is a man on the run, having accidentally shot the dentist of Fort Smith in Arkansas. The dentist's brother happens to be the sheriff, July Johnson. Reunited with Gus and Call, Jake's breath-taking description of Montana inspires Call to gather a herd of cattle and drive them there to begin the first cattle ranch in the frontier territory. Call is attracted to the romantic notion of settling pristine country. Gus is less enthusiastic, pointing out that they are getting old and that they are Rangers and traders, not cowboys. But he changes his mind when Jake reminds him that the love of Gus' life, Clara, lives on the Platte, 20 miles from Ogallala, Nebraska, which is on their route to Montana. Although he had proposed many times, she had rejected him every time because, in her words, Gus is "a rambler." Clara dislikes Call because she feels jealous of the years Gus spent with him instead of her. Captain Call prevails. They make preparations for their adventure north, including stealing horses in Mexico and recruiting almost all the male citizens of Lonesome Dove.
Ironically, Jake Spoon decides not to go at all. Instead, he promises the town's only prostitute, Lorena Wood, known as Lorie, he'll take her to San Francisco. Jake and Lorena ride along with the cattle drive to begin their journey, however.
Ogallala also happens to be the destination of Elmira, the wife of Sheriff Johnson, as she runs away to meet up with her true love, Dee Boot. So the three groups head north. They encounter horse thieves, murderers, hostile Indians, inclement weather, and a few inner demons.

Tags: murder, melodrama

Review:
The Lonesome Dove mini-series contains every core element of a classic story of the mythic Old West: romance, tragedy, courageous and independent yet very human heroes, vicious yet believable villains, plenty of action, and the overall grit and determination of frontier life.
What makes the film even better are the truly exceptional performances by the first rate cast, that includes Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Ulrich, and Anjelica Huston, and the great musical score, which won a well-deserved Emmy.
This is the kind of film about the Old West that only comes along once in a blue moon, and lovers of Old West stories and movies (as well as real-life cowboys) watch it over and over.
It is a must experience.Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones top-line an outstanding cast in this epic-proportioned western which should have been worthy of a cinematic release for it captures beautifully the look, the feel and the time of the Old West as never before.In a nutshell, it relates the tale of two former Texas Rangers, Woodrow Call (Jones) and Gus McCrae (Duvall), both getting on in years, who manage a dusty but comfortable living running a cattle company just outside rundown Lonesome Dove, Texas.
A third ranger, Jake Spoon (Robert Urich), returns from up north, on the lam for an accidental murder, and perks Woodrow's interest in being the first to take a herd into the mostly unsettled northern region of Montana, while laying claim to an area considered `perfect cattle territory.'  He convinces relaxed old-timer Gus, who is content these days with a bottle of whiskey and a whore, to join him for one last thrill to recapture their old "Texas Ranger" glory days and shake up their too sedentary lives.Re-stealing horses and a herd from Mexican bandidos, they sign on a team of men to undertake the arduous journey eventually braving about every type of adversity imaginable.
When it's not windstorms and snake-infested waters threatening life, limb and livestock, they have murderous horse thieves and vengeful Indians to contend with.What makes `Lonesome Dove' stand out proudly is not only its rich, panoramic beauty and intriguing story-lines, but its caring, sharply-defineated characters that keep this six-hour plus movie from ever wandering off.
Also contributing greatly are Diane Lane as the town whore who seeks a better life; earnest Ricky Schroeder as the youngest member of the team whose family tree is questioned; Danny Glover, the wise and dedicated team scout; Barry Corbin as the slow-thinking undersheriff; Frederic Forrest as the murderous redskin Blue Duck; Angelica Huston as Duvall's kind-hearted former flame; Steve Buscemi and Frederick Coffin as a pair of lusty lowlifes; Nina Siemaszko as a scrappy backwoods waif, and others too numerous to name.
It's such an interesting story and so-well photographed that you don't mind the long length.The acting is top-rate, led by Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, with a deep cast that includes many well-known actors.
The story, sets, acting, character development, music,....all amazing.The production is as if you were plopped on a horse in the middle of a cattle drive in the old American West.
You can have the Hamlet DVD any day you want; I'll watch Lonesome Dove.Robert Duvall is the anchor and the soul.
And somehow Tommy Lee Jones steals the movie.A great story about great characters played by great actors.The Godfather movies, as good as they are, have not the legend or the nobility of Lonesome Dove.
They stuck very close to the source material which is good because Lonesome Dove is hands down the best novel ever.All the actors are cast perfectly and play the roles perfectly.
I would recommend reading the book first but if you don't it won't take much away from the experience.Lonesome Dove is a timeless classic that my dad showed me and I plan to show my kids too..
Lonesome Dove tells the story of friendship, love, tragedy, life, change, the frontier, the passing of generations.Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call are retired Texan Rangers, holed up in the small, dusty south Texas town of Lonesome Dove, a town with less going on than the nearby Rio Grande.
They off and go to Montana, along the way meeting death, life, former loves and new loves, and witnessing the closing of the American frontier.This film is six hours long, if you think of things that way, but really, it's far too short.
I remember the first time I saw Lonesome Dove I watched all six hours in one sitting.
The movie starts out in Lonesome Dove, Texas where Woodrow 'Cap'n' Call (Tommy Lee Jones) and Augustus 'Gus' McCrae (Robert Duvall) run a small outfit called Hat Creek Cattle Company and Livery Emporium who's sign proudly states "We Don't Rent Pigs!
Goats Neither," and in Latin "Uva uvum vivendo varia fit."  In the interest of not telling you everything, you'll have to watch the movie to see if it means anything.Gus and Cap'n Call used to ride with the Texas Rangers years earlier with Joshua Deets (Danny Glover) and Jake Spoon (Robert Urich).
Tommy Lee Jones has never been more effective in a part, and Robert Duvall's Augustus McCrae is probably one of the greatest performances ever.This is a sad movie.
Hey, *I* have historically not enjoyed westerns, but this is quite possibly my all time favorite movie.I almost want to say this is not a "western" - just an superb realistic adventure which happens to take place in the "west."  It is an incredible story about real people living through a very true and difficult era of our country.
The characters never do anything against their nature for dramatic effect."Lonesome Dove" is about people; about life; about love, faith, and perseverance in hard times.
It succeeds in demonstrating these things through human drama, realistic adventure, and touching humor.Just read the rest of the reviews about Lonesome Dove!WATCH THIS MOVIE..
The pace is just perfect, not hurried along like a 2 hour plus movie so it has a lovely feel and gives you a real sense of the bond the characters have for each other and the years they have spent together.
And Rick Schroder is far better than you could have imagined when he was doing "Silver Spoons" You can see how he developed into the character he now plays on TV.So if you love a good western and a good story, pop up some popcorn, recline back in your Lazy-boy and prepare to spend a few wonderful hours back in the old west..
I was about 10 years old when I first watched Lonesome Dove.My parents were away, working hard to provide for our family, and I was left at home with a few channel.
I have seen many films/series since, but none has made an impact as beautiful and true as Lonesome Dove.Gus and Call's friendship in this 4part masterpiece, has defined my very idea of what friendship could look like in real life.Today I have a couple of dear friends.
Tommy plays the best Woodrow there could ever be and Robert Duvall as gus i admire his character so much that I chose the name for my Rottweiller.
Find out about Col. Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving - how they set up their cattle drives from Texas to Colorado and Wyoming and what happened to them (expecially Loving and Wilson's fight with some Comanches) and you can see that the beauty of Lonesome Dove is knowing that the story is not just fiction but has a basis in historical fact, this just adds to the quality of this series..
Ironicially, as a rule I do not enjoy Westerns, but I considered Lonesome Dove to be the best and most powerful TV miniseries of all time.
After a void of something like 10 years.I have just re-visited "Lonesome Dove" It impressed and amazed me ,the first time I viewed it as a mini-series.
I own the entire Lonesome Dove Saga, I own the books, and I've read and watched them many times.
Robert Duvall is Gus McCrae, and Tommy Lee Jones, Woodrow Call, both former Texas Rangers who run a livery in Lonesome Dove in Texas.
Unlike Gus, he didn't have outlets, like drinking, gambling and whoring.The book and film, LONESOME DOVE, are remarkable achievements..
Dead Mans Walk and Street's of Laredo is good also.Excellent Acting and cast,great story and the sound track second to none.I thought TLJ and Duvall were outstanding in their portrayal Gus & Call.
Lonesome Dove is a real western that everyone can watch and enjoy.True friendship,Death,and adventure and a love story is lonesome Dove.
Somebody give us a mini series for television such as Commanche Moon to watch,besides Reality TV,CSI,Cold Case,Law & Order,NCIS,Numbers,Criminal Minds,Shark,Too close to home.Some network please.Joe. Truly a Great Movie.
Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Duvall and Danny Glover make this film a Classic.
He then gave me a loan of LONESOME DOVE a series that I had heard great things about but I had never seen mainly because I'm not much of a fan of the Western genre .
Never mind Pacino and DeNiro , Robert Duvall is the greatest living American character actor alive today and once again he gives a greatly understated and consistent performance as Gus McCrae while Tommy Lee Jones ( An actor who can be very uneven ) gives one of his career best performances .
The film features several great actors, such as Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover, and Angelica Huston, in their prime, with an excellent supporting cast.
The one thing you would have to ask for with a range of events, moods, and characters like that would be great actors, and Lonesome Dove certainly delivers in that department.
Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones couldn't have been cast more perfectly and they couldn't have played their characters any better.
Every character that shows up in Lonesome Dove, no matter how long, is always interesting and always does something great for the epic plot, and every actor gives it their all, always with fantastic results, no matter how big or how small the role.Lonesome Dove is simply one of the greatest things that ever happened to television.
I've ever seen an actor own a character like Duvall owned Gus McCrae in "Lonesome Dove." Twenty plus years after seeing it the first time, it's still greatness.
I'm trying to think of another movie or TV series that embodies everything I want in story telling as "Lonesome Dove" does and I can't.
I think one of the most romantic lines on film is when Gus say's 'Lorie, darlin' (also when Robert Preston whispers 'Till there was you' into Marian the Librarian's ear but I digress.) But all the characters are superb...Tommy Lee Jones, Diane Lane, Danny Glover, Robert Urich, Ricky Schroder, Angelica Huston and so many more...If you think you don't like Westerns, watch this.
If you love Westerns, watch Lonesome Dove.
Thankfully, they made the book into a mini-series because I cannot imagine Lonesome Dove being done justice in 2 hours.
Well, oh course Duvall as Augustus 'Gus' McCrae would have been greatly missed in Streets of Laredo since he dies in Lonesome Dove, but Streets of Laredo desperately needed Tommy Lee Jones to carry on as the lonely highly moral Woodrow F.
Robert Duvall's character Gus, has got to be one of the best roles I've ever seen him in.
In Lonesome Dove, not only does the movie hold true to the book, it gives us more of a real feel of how life on the plains and in the old west was really like.
From the opening scenes on the front porch of the bunkhouse with Gus and the 2 pigs, to the last scene with Call talking to the reporter, LD is a masterpiece.The casting in Lonesome Dove was simply oustanding, with Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones becoming Call and Woodrow, so good were they in their respective parts.
The supporting cast including Angelica Houston,Diane Lane, Danny Glover,Chris Cooper, Barry Corbin,Ricky Schroeder,Robert Urich(may you rest in peace),right down to Helena Humann as Peach, gave us the best supporting cast performances in a western series in years.
It exceeds excellence for a number of reasons; however, because of it's length (6 hours) and television pedigree, it is considered a mini-series, thus eliminating it from direct competition with standard length motion pictures.In my opinion, Lonesome Dove gives us perhaps the best acting ensemble ever produced.
Watching Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones play off each other's character is simply a joy.
Perhaps that is how LD should best be described: a compelling doc-u-drama, for the setting, characters and props are dead-solid accurate (check out Duvall's cap-and-ball pistol).Rent (or buy) the movie, prepare huge quantities of popcorn, and ready yourself for a wonderful story that will leave you talking about it for days..
For my money, Lonesome Dove, was the greatest TV mini-series of all time!.
So for the four or five nights that the Dove was on...I watched as true to life a story of the American west that I have ever seen.
As a historian of Plains Indians and the West, I found the true to life saga of Lonesome Dove, to be equal to the greatest western film ever made: The Searchers.
Robert Duvall plays Gus to the hilt, and Tommy Lee Jones gives a bravura performance as the stoic Woodrow, which unfortunately for the actors in the sequels, is a very hard act to follow.
Throw in characters like Jake Spoon, Newt, Deets, Pea-Eye, July Johnson, Roscoe Brown, (I could go on forever), and it just doesn't get any better.From "cutting cards for a poke" to "we don't rent pigs", Lonesome Dove is a fun show to watch, easier to do over a few nights rather than camping out in front of the TV for the entire 6 hours (unless you have that kind of time).
The film really is an epic in all proportions; a brilliant star-studded cast, a truly moving story, excellent characters that you really do feel for and a fantastic musical score are just few of many of the plus point of the film.Coming from a person who really does hate 'Westerns', you have got to take my word and watch this film.
Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall are always fun to watch, but I was sorely disappointed by the series as a whole, coming to it immediately after reading the novel.
I've seen the original Lonesome Dove series a number of times, and each time appreciated everything about the film.
They'd have gotten an idea of what REAL frontier life was like.Having never lived in those times, I find it easy to believe that life on the frontier was pretty close to what was depicted in the movie, from the lousy cooking, the dusty, treacherous trail rides, to the native Americans, who were by that time burning with hatred for the white man, after being decimated by the Army; the general lawlessness and ruthlessness, as exhibited by many of the frontiersmen and women characters in the movie.As for Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Duvall, Anjelica Huston, Frederick Forrest, Danny Glover, and the rest of the cast, they were all born for those roles.
Still, this film shines, not only as a western, but as a story of great, gritty and real-seeming characters.
I don't like westerns, but I love Lonesome Dove.
Lonesome Dove is probably the greatest made-for-TV film of all time..
"Lonesome Dove" is the story of two best friends driving cattle and horses from Texas to Montana.
The cowboy characters drawn by Duvall and Jones in this movie (as Gus MacRae and Woodrow Call) are the best ever done in a western.
Superb performances from Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall are demonstrated in Lonesome Dove.
Lonesome Dove is truly one of the best min-series I have ever watched.
Tommy Lee Jones and Robert DuVall shine as never before.Lonesome Dove shows all sides of the untamed west and reveals it as no other movie in history has done.
It's development of characters is unparaleled, and the story is a timeless one that can be watched over and over, even if you're not a fan of westerns.I highly recommend this movie to any and all..
"Lonesome Dove" is not just the greatest television production of all time, but one of the best movies ever filmed.
Tommy Lee Jones' and Robert Duvall's best performances ever.
In this mini-series two of this century's greatest actors, Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall, show us why the Western genre is still the best medium for human drama and adventure.
Besides the performances of Jones and Duvall actors like Chris Cooper, Rick Schroder and Tim Scott also adds to the greatness of Lonesome Dove..
I've seen Lonesome Dove at least 10 times in my life.
The 200 Hour Lonesome Dove t-shirt.Watch this movie or read this book.
Even if you don't like westerns, this is the best movie (and book) ever.
If you watch it and end up liking the movie, you have to read the whole entire series by Larry McMurtry.
The other books were made into movies, but they were not as good as Lonesome Dove.
Lonesome Dove is quite possibly the greatest western film of all time.
The all-star cast, including Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover, Diane Lane, and Robert Duvall bring a truly amazing story to life.
Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall are perfectly cast as the lead characters and the other characters in the movie all had depth and realism!
it is the perfect western that can be watched over and over.IF you have not seen this epic,next rainy or snowy gotta stay in day.put on some beans and break out the bottle and take a trip back to the ol'west and enjoy the greatest cattle drive movie of all-time.This film is very close to the novel.This is a struggle of the human spirit as well as we see Call wrestle with his past as well as his further.