Johnson County War (2002)

Review by All Movie Guide
The Johnson County War is such a dramatically potent event that two films, both running well over three hours, have been made using its events as a backdrop. After the hash that Michael Cimino made of the war in Heaven's Gate (1981), one would hope that this second go-round might produce a more historically accurate and dramatically nuanced production. And with Frederick Manfred's well-regarded novel as the source and Larry McMurtry (of Lonesome Dove fame) as the co-writer, there was reason to believe that this film would get it right. It doesn't, and while it's not the unholy mess that Heaven's Gate was, its faults are not the overreaching ambitions of that film (which at least boasted spectacular cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond and an evocative score by David Mansfield) so much as a serious outbreak of Western clichés. The script for this film demonstrates how thin the line is in this genre between quality writing (as in McMurtry's splendid novel Lonesome Dove and William Wittliff's brilliant adaptation for TV) and this festival of groaners. Aside from the by-the-numbers dramatics, the film fails to do much better with its history. Changing Manfred's title, Riders of Judgment, to the name of the actual backdrop event promises something the film doesn't care to deliver. None of the actual names of the Johnson Country War principals are employed, nor any real location names outside of Cheyenne (whose railroad station does not border a lake, as shown here). The lynching of the prostitute Queenie (Rachel Ward) and her companion Arthur (William Samples) have real-life counterparts in the murders of Cattle Kate and Jim Averill, but that episode happened several counties south of Johnson and the details of Kate's profession have recently been questioned by at least one historian. As for the bigger picture, the depiction of the county's leading cattle baron as an Englishman isn't entirely inaccurate but less likely than it would have been ten years before, and besides, Lord Peter's foppish ways aren't even good for a laugh, intended or not. The conversations among the cattle barons over how to handle the rustling problem seem forced and in dire need of context. (And in a film that runs well over three hours, that shouldn't be asking too much.) The climax, the siege of the cabin in which Cain Hammett (was this Manfred's sly tip of the ten-gallon hat to two great writers of crime fiction?) is holed up accurately reflects the details of Nate Champion's being able to hold off a small army for 12 hours. (Cimino filmed the same siege with Christopher Walken as Champion.) But the aftermath of the siege suggests that the mercenaries will pay for their crime; in truth they were not even brought to trial. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide