Lone Star (1996)

Lone Star is two-thirds of a really good movie. Unfortunately, one- third of it is mediocre melodrama. The two-thirds of the movie that is worth watching is set in a border town in Texas over a period of several decades told through flashbacks. It concerns a corrupt, racist, white sheriff, Charlie Wade, who murders anyone who does not pay him off. One night, after his deputy, Buddy Deeds, confronts him and lets him know that his days of extorting the community are over, the sheriff disappears along with $10,000 of county funds.Years later, some human remains are found in the desert. The present sheriff, Sam Deeds, the son of Buddy, begins investigating. Little by little, the evidence begins to indicate that the bones are those of Sheriff Wade, that he was shot, and that the person who killed him was Buddy. This occurs just as the town prepares for a dedication, The Buddy Deeds Memorial Courthouse, because Buddy is regarded as a hero in that town. Sam never got along too well with his father, and so he is more than willing to let the truth come out, while Mayor Hollis Pogue, former deputy to Wade and then to Buddy, is opposed to Sam's efforts. Hollis does not have much respect for Sam, who he thinks will never measure up to what his father was.Another person sponsoring the dedication is Mercedes Cruz, a respected businesswoman who runs a popular café. She is the mother of Pilar, who used to be Sam's friend in grade school and his girlfriend in high school. However, Buddy did not want Sam dating her, and he kept them apart, which is a major reason Sam resents his father. Mercedes also disapproved of Pilar and Sam going together.As Sam continues his investigation, he finds that Sheriff Wade murdered Eladio Cruz one day because he was smuggling Mexicans across the border without giving Wade his usual bribe. Cruz was fixing a flat tire on his truck, with the illegals in the back, when Wade and Deputy Hollis stopped on the road beside them. Wade asks Cruz if he has a gun in his truck, and when Cruz says he has a shotgun, Wade tells him to get it. When Cruz reaches for the shotgun, Wade shoots and kills him. This way Wade can claim self-defense. Hollis, however, knows it was murder, and he is horrified. It later turns out that Eladio Cruz was Mercedes' husband, giving her a motive for killing Wade.A third person with a strong motive for killing Wade is a black man named Otis. Wade used to shakedown the former owner of a black bar, Roderick, and one night when Otis was a young man, who just started working for Roderick, Wade humiliated him. It finally turns out that the night Buddy told Wade he should turn in his badge and leave town, Wade and Hollis drove over to the black bar to get his usual kickback for letting Roderick continue operating his bar. When Wade discovers that Otis is running a poker game without giving Wade a cut, he beats Otis up. Then he tells him to hand him the revolver that Roderick kept in a cigar box, obviously intending to set him up just as he did Eladio Cruz. But just as Buddy walks through the door, Hollis pulls out his own gun and kills Wade. The three of them decide to cover up the killing. They take the $10,000 in county funds and give it to Mercedes, who has been struggling ever since her husband was murdered. She uses the money to start the café.The night Sam learns about this from Otis and Hollis, he learns something else. Up till then, Sam believed that the reason his father did not want him and Pilar to date was that he did not want his son dating a Mexican. It turns out Buddy had no problem with Anglos and Mexicans crossing racial lines. In fact, he and Mercedes were having an affair. The problem was the opposite of miscegenation. It was incest. Pilar and Sam were brother and sister, at least insofar as Buddy was the father of both. Pilar and Sam had already become lovers again by this time. Since Pilar cannot have children anymore, they decide the incestuous nature of their relationship is not a problem and plan to marry.That is the good two-thirds of the movie. Unfortunately, John Sayles, who wrote and directed this movie, wanted it to be about the three races of this border town, Anglos, Mexicans, and blacks (as this movie terms them), and he wanted the three races to be represented in equal measure. This desire on Sayles' part led him to intersperse the story described above with a story about Otis's son, Colonel Delmore Payne, who is the commanding officer of a local army base.This part of the movie parallels the main part. Payne has conflicts with his father, Otis, much as Sam had conflicts with his father, Buddy. There is also a subplot of miscegenation, in which a white male soldier and a black female soldier talk about getting married. But it all falls flat. It is just routine melodrama. Again and again, just as we are really getting into the main part of the movie, it all grinds to a halt so that the subplot surrounding Colonel Payne can be advanced. Considering that the movie is two hours and fifteen minutes long, a version of the movie that left out this part would have been a shorter but much better movie. This is an example of how art can be spoiled by a preconceived idea, in this case, the idea that the three races of this movie must each be given equal time, instead of allowing as much time as needed to tell a good story.

Great movie.Even better than expected. Billed as a murder-mystery, it is that, and more. The murder-mystery part is very original and intriguing, and you're kept guessing right to the end. Around this, writer-director John Sayles spins several human-drama stories, spanning 40 years, each of which deserve a movie of their own. Even the relationships side is not without intrigue, so the whole movie requires you to piece together the puzzle, like a good drama should.Superb performance by Chris Cooper in the lead role. How he didn't get an Oscar nomination, I don't know. Good support from Elizabeth Pena, Joe Morton and Kris Kristofferson. Matthew McConaughey's character, though crucial to the plot, has very little screen time. Minor appearance from Frances McDormand too.

In this Texas detective story, a sheriff finds himself investigating the past of his own father, a man who was also his predecessor as sheriff, and a local hero everywhere except in his own household. The characters may be slow-moving and tight-lipped out of habit, but the ambiguity of their feelings is plain, and a strength of this drama, as is the way the plot weaves in many aspects of life in a border town. Perhaps some aspects of the way that town life is portrayed are a little too stylised, a little anachronistic, the reality of Mexican-American relations shown through the lens of the traditional western: but but film stays consistently within the world it has created. In terms of overall mood, there are elements that resemble the later 'No Country For Old Men', but without that movie's fall-back psychopath-driven plot, it offers a more interesting and ultimately humane vision of south Texas life.

Sam Deeds is the son of a late but much beloved Texas county sheriff who has inherited his father's job. But when a body is dug up from forty years ago and Sam investigates he discovers his father's illustrious past contains some dark and painful secrets ...This Texican murder mystery is one of Sayles' many beautifully constructed and densely populated character dramas (see also City Of Hope and Sunshine State) where, as with so much of his work, every single person is interesting, thoughtful and fully-rounded. This film is also a beautiful example of how to elegantly switch a narrative back and forward through two different eras, both visually through lovely little panning shots which dip in and out of time, and plot-wise as gradually the gauze covering the complex relationships is slowly lifted to reveal what has made the characters who they are. This is immensely satisfying as the pieces fit together, delicately played by a sensational ensemble cast who understand exactly what the story is trying to achieve. Cooper and Peña are both superb as the middle-aged leads, both working county jobs, both struggling to find any meaning to their lives, both unable to move on from a fateful past together. The older actors steal the show with irascible wit, and pragmatism and regret written in equal measure on their faces - Canada in particular is outstanding - and Morton is terrific as ever in one of many parts for Sayles as the no-nonsense army man forced to embrace the tenderness he has long considered a weakness. Perhaps the casting masterstroke though is country legend Kristofferson as the thoroughly evil ghost from the past, whose violent brand of personal justice is horrifyingly plausible. Full of poignant moments, clever misdirection, evocative locations, heartfelt performances and funny lines (when Sam is headed to Mexico and tells a colleague he's going to "the other side", the response is "Republicans ?"), with a fine story and a great ending, this is high quality drama all the way. Shot in the beautiful south-western Texas border cities of Del Rio, Eagle Pass and Laredo.