headhunter46 I have read enough books and talked to people who had grampas or great uncles who lived in the days of the "old west" to know this movie is closer to reality then most. Life was hard, some people grew up cold and mean. Wesley Hardin shot an unarmed man who annoyed him. There were some really nasty people back then. This movie can stand on its own even though it is a follow up to Lonesome Dove. That was warmer, more romantic, and more likable than this. Watch this for realism.Capt. Call is retired and gets hired by the railroad to chase down a bandit for robbing numerous trains. Many people are changed by the events that lead up to the demise of the bandit. Some for the good, some to the grave. It portrays the harshness and difficulties of living in the 1800's west.It is touching to see Capt. Call warm to the young blind girl and truly begin to show affection.There are several heartbreaking moments that will tug at your emotions, and some curdle your blood.This is a great movie but be prepared for some shocking moments that will leave you in disbelief.

Gunn One of the first things I do after watching a movie I really like, is checking reviews of others...professionals and amateurs, as listed here. It's very frustrating reading some of them. Why do people compare them? Why do they look for faults? Why do they not see and praise the positive aspects and ease up on critical commentary? It's like comparing apples & oranges & bananas & strawberries, etc. Comparing a film to the book or a previous film seems overly critical to me. It always bothered me when Siskel & Ebert & Roeper, et al. rated films as bad or good...thumbs up or down...see it or don't see it. Streets of Laredo is a perfect example. A lot of superb work was put into this fascinating sequel by the director, the cinematographer, the actors, the music composer, the art directors and more. It deserves more than comparisons with the equally superb mini-series Lonesome Dove and its fabulous other sequels. James Garner's Woodrow Call was terrific, so was Tommy Lee Jones' but is it fair to compare them? Cissy Spacek's Lorena was just as good as Diane Lane's as were Sam Shephard's and Tim Scott's Pea Eye interpretations. How do you rate cake and pie? Is one better than the other? Should you condemn it to thumbs down or tell others to avoid it? Maybe to some people this is the way. One constant in all the LD sequels is Larry McMurtry's brilliant characterizations. And don't complain about character development. It takes time to develop a character's nuances and profile. E.G Archie Bunker, Mary Richards, Barney Miller and friends. How long a movie do you want to watch? To wrap it up, Streets of Laredo is a superb film with great acting, directing, cinematography, and a stirring musical score and more. So was Lonesome Dove, Return to Lonesome Dove, Dead Man's Walk, Comanche Moon and the TV series. They're all different but great!

tfilm78 This was probably a different sequel than people expected. The sequel they expected was probably Return to Lonesome Dove. Why? Because Return to Lonesome Dove dealt with the threads left hanging by the original Lonesome Dove, mainly Call's relationship with Newt. I also dealt with the ranch set up in Montana. It's understandable that people would have expected that. But Return to Lonesome Dove was in many ways just a rehash. Robert Duvall is replaced by William Petersen, Danny Glover by Lou Gossett Jr., and Frederic Forrest with Dennis Haysbert. They are simply replacement characters. Once again, there's a cattle drive. It deals with Newt and Call's relationship, but thing brings in another paternity case. It just goes to prove that Lonesome Dove brought those story lines to their natural, if not their emotionally satisfying, conclusion. Newt and Call both know the truth, even if they can't admit it to each other. Without knowing for sure whether Call intends to return to Montana, we're left with the feeling that Newt has to make his own way in the world, and has reached a point where he's ready too. The other supporting characters don't really need to some back, as they were ranch hands, not major characters Given that, I wasn't disappointed not to see Newt or many other characters return when I saw the sequel or read the book. Though I was disappointed that McMurtry felt he had to kill off Newt. And it makes sense that McMurtry, who is from Texas, would want to maintain a connection to Texas rather than move the entire story up to Montana.The deaths of Gus, Jake and Deets leaves only two Rangers alive: Call and Pea-Eye. The two of them are very similar in a way. Pea-Eye is task-oriented, like Call, not a joker like Gus, so that makes an interesting dynamic to explore. It's also a good way to show a contrast between them, which is why Lorena returns. Call had a chance to have a family with Maggie, a whore, but he turned his back on it. Pea-Eye, on the other hand, pursues that relationship and starts a family.Though it is a sequel to Lonesome Dove, viewers should brace themselves for what is, in all other respects, a completely different movie. Were it not for the history that Call and the Parkers have, this could have been a story completely separate from the Lonesome Dove series. This, like the prequels, is a story were the work of a Texas Ranger takes center stage. You see Call and Parker in action, and you also see the pursuit from his quarry's point of view, and that of his mother, who has lost so much of her family to the Rangers. Unlike Lonesome Dove, which had a romantic sense of adventure, this film shows the harm that their work sometimes causes. It also shows the affect of civilization on the Old West. No date is specified, but this appears to be set in the late 19th or early 20th century, in which the Texas Rangers, and Call in particular, are becoming obsolete. As Woodrow and Pea Eye show, however, they still have work to do, and do it well. It's not quite the film that Lonesome Dove was, which had a great mixture of romance, darkness, adventure and excitement--it's a much darker film--but still worth a look.Oh, and to correct one of the other reviews. Robert Duvall played Gus before, not Call. Tommy Lee Jones played Call, who is played here by James Garner. And there are two other constants: Lorena; played in Lonesome Dove by Diane Lane and here by Sissy Spacek; and Pea Eye Parker; played in Lonesome Dove by Tim Scott, and here by Sam Shepard. It took me a while to realize that too, since they look so different. But her mention of Blue Duck and her whoring life is enough to connect the dots, and Sam Shepard actually plays Pea Eye as a man with some intelligence though not much formal education, rather than the simpleton that we got from Tim Scott. A nice improvement, I think. He seems a more competent Ranger. It's also a shame that Tommy Lee Jones never returned to the role of Woodrow Call, though maybe at the age Call is in this story, it wouldn't have made sense. I must say Garner and Shepard both appear younger, mainly since their hair has turned grey from white.

cabuesch Tommy Lee Jones was outstanding as the captain as was John Voight. James Garner was just playing James Garner playing Captain Call. Also, dropping the names of real people such as Charles Goodnight and John Wesley Hardin and the names of characters from other movies such as R.J. Poteet from Centennial was kind of lame.