CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

dugan49 Robert Duvall will eventually go down as one of the all time great movie cowboys, even though he starred in only three westerns, and appeared in support in a handful of others.The three that he starred include the greatest western film of all time, Lonesome Dove, and two excellent examples of the genre, Open Range and Broken Trail. Broken Trail isn't quite up to Open Range, but it's close. Duvall and Thomas Haydn Church drive 500 hundred horses across the upper northwest, accompanied by another cowhand, 5 young Chinese women , a elderly Chinese man, and a bedraggled and dis spirited prostitute. How they come to the company of these other characters is the meat and potatoes of the movie, and it is kept interesting by a simple but catchy script that is in Duvall and Church's wheelhouse as actors. Both men won Emmy awards for their outstanding performances.This isn't really an action movie, but there is enough of it over the course of three hours to satisfy that niche, and a matter of fact portrayal of the brutality of the lawless frontier life that makes one appreciate the accomplishments of these unique people.

dana-277 Great acting.......great script/writing. Classic story or lessons that should be the basis for all great award winning films. Icing generally includes cinematography, authenticity, good supporting characters and acting/wardrobe. Never pass up a single Duvall film.....follow the actor who chooses his next role for the love of the story and writing not the fame and fortune. Here's a spoiler ;) Find the movie "wrestling earnest hemmingway" and watch a rare gem of a film that will resonate and dig into the the surface ...just the surface of great films. Gave this an 8 cuz only halfway through and soooo impressed had to look it up!

Irving Warner This was a very worthwhile production, with excellent acting all the way through. Robert Duvall is brilliant, of course, as is his co-star. It is not an overwhelmingly good western,("Lonesome Dove", or "Unforgiven") and nor would I put it in the "superior" category with something like "Open Range" or "Will Penny". The second disk of the series really goes downhill, writing-wise, and you have events rather becoming muddled. The ending is also muddled. This dragged the movie down significantly. But, certainly the most outstanding part of this movie was the setting, photography and physical beauty of a horse drive--in "Broken Trail" the horses and herd were really a major character. The drovers and wranglers for this production deserved a special Emmy. And all of this was set in some of the most beautiful country available on the planet. A real pleasure to watch this movie.

ccthemovieman-1 I can only hope they someone keeps making Westerns because the few that have been made the last few years have been outstanding. This one, a TV miniseries, is just great. I can't enough good things about it. I saw it recently on DVD. It was a three-hour film. I thought I read somewhere that it was four hours, so I don't know if this version has been down. I only know what I saw, and I liked about everything I saw.Looking at the IMDb reviews here before making a rental helped me out a lot. It prepared me for a slower film. In other words, I knew what to expect.....and that helped. I didn't expect a rough film with a ton of violence and nasty characters, language, etc.What surprised me was just how interesting a film this was for being three hours long and not having a lot of action. I attribute this to the dialog, the acting, characters you care about and the wonderful cinematography. It's hard to beat the scenery in a nicely-filmed western.The words coming out of the two stars of the picture, Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church were extremely believable material. These guys were tough, but not abrasively- macho, compassionate but not sappy. As "Prentice Ritter" and "Tom Harte," respectively, they fascinating to watch. I liked what they said throughout the movie and they were extremely believable characters. They looked and talked the part.This story is different because it's mainly about helping five young Chinese women, who are destined for prostitution, slavery and who knows what else. Ritter and Harte didn't volunteer for the job; it accidentally came upon them as they were escorting horses North for a nice payday. The two men showed wonderful compassion for these girls, despite the fact they slowed their mission down and had a problem with communication.There has to be some villains in a western and we have them here with "Big Rump Kate" and others but they are not overblown and we don't see so much of them they they get annoying. For a Walter Hill film, this was astonishing in how low-key it was told.We also get a bit of a romance, just a glimpse between Duvall's character and one played by Greta Scacchi ("Nola Johns"). It has a different kind of ending to it, one I didn't expect and one that will emotionally affect you.It simple terms: this is a nice movie, a good story about good guys doing a good deed for the right reasons. Watching them do it, under adverse conditions, was almost a privilege. A big thank you to all involved with this movie and giving us fans of this genre hope that it isn't completely dead.