Edmund_Dantes
I liked the movie. I guess many of the previous posters missed the sex and swearing. The New York accent was explained when Arthur was discussing with Miriam her desire to return to New York because of the threat in their town from the presence of a gunfighter. I liked the confusion in the beginning about Jack Cole and it was fun figuring out during the course of the movie the identity of Jack Cole and the story of why Jack Fowler left his family for 8 years. The Bible verses were true to life in that persons were poor in those times and often the only book they owned was The Bible and as a result many became quite conversant with it.
Luke
This is a movie which held morality and marriage in high esteem. Those who dislike religion will dislike this movie. With that said: I watched it first before reading any of these reviews. I thought it was a very meaningful movie, though the bad guy was a bit over-the-top. (The violence could be disturbing for children, so parents should use caution.) The bible-quoting derisively mentioned by a couple reviewers was not overly-frequent. While it may be surprising that someone can remember such quotes by verse, it's not unrealistic if one is raised in a religious household. This movie held a powerful message about God's forgiveness for our sins. It also treated marriage as something more than shacking-up. If that offends anyone, I don't think the movie is to blame. I didn't give it a 10 because I thought the bad guy and the ending was a bit contrived.
JP2313
The only good thing about this movie is that it got me to register on this site. The acting was atrocious...well with the exception of the horse....fortunately that animal was protected by the SPCA and therefore didn't have to deal with any of the rotten dialogue. It seemed to me that the movie was bordering on camp.A few of the posts hailed it as a great movie due to lack of coarse language and violence. Might as well watch Mary Poppins.It's going to be difficult to find newer westerns w/o violence, and this movie was not one. The merciless beating of the mother and her hair cut off intimated more distasteful violence than could be seen in "Open Range" or Silverado".I expect to see this show up in something like MST3K.
artzau
Why? Why did they make such an insulting-to-human-intelligence film as this one? To call it a "dog" would be heaping undeserved praise on an unworthy effort, not to mention insulting dogs everywhere. So, how did they get Eric Roberts and Ernie Borgnine to sign on? The only answer I can come up with is, a paycheck. The rest of the cast(?) are unknown, except for sing-through-his-nose, ultraconservative C&W singer, Randy Travis whose acting consists of two expressions, one like he's going potty and the other, that he's just finished. Also, was Gerry Marshall's role as the hen-pecked storekeeper supposed to be comedy relief with his pronounced New York dialect?My wife and I watched this film through because we couldn't believe anyone who have the temerity to make, let alone release, a film as flimsy and mindless as this one. Everything was bad from props- a brand new, unblemished holster belonging to a supposed gunfighter- to the settings- the store with a tiny shelf where Marshall is stacking canned goods.
Julia had better tell her brother Eric to find some better scripts, Ernie should rest on his laurels, Penny should tell Gerry that he should be ashamed of himself and Randy should stick to plucking his git-tar and singing his right-wing County music through his nose.
AD
