Really Surprised!

Overrated

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

First of all, let me say I don't generally like Woody Harrelson, but I thought he did a superb job in this picture.Billy Crudup plays Pete, a likable cowboy who returns from WWII to work his own land with some cattle he buys using his GI salary. Harrelson plays "Big Boy," his best friend; they both are averse to working for "Jim Ed" (Sam Elliot in a rare bad guy role), who owns most of the town and environs. It's a typical plot, with the little guys pitted against the fat cat, but one which is developed in a very realistic way. There were no gun fights or barroom brawls -- incredible for a Hollywood western! And the little guys just get by -- they don't somehow crush the fat cat. Quite refreshing.I'll stop my praise-fest to say that no real Pete could be as stupid as this one. His would-be sweetheart Mona (Patricia Arquette), who couldn't wait for any of the GIs to return and married the first guy who asked her (her hubby works for Jim Ed, of course), flirts unabashedly with both Pete and his best friend Big Boy. Unbeknownst to Pete, who still holds a candle for her, she closes the deal with Big Boy, yet continues to lead him on. Meanwhile, Penelepe Cruz plays "Josepha" (she is obviously Mexican-American, and therefore should be "Josefa"), who loves Pete and waited for him throughout the war. Needless to say, she is HOT. Pete is obviously blind and does not see this.This is where I have to stop and protest. Since when does Arquette come anywhere near the beauty of Cruz? Let's not even discuss appearances; in the movie Josefa exudes innocent and virtuous yet sexually attractive energy, whilst Mona is obviously nothing more than a cheap slut. Nevertheless, Pete is obsessed with Mona. Almost totally unbelievable. You feel for Pete, yet at the same time you condemn him for his blindness and stupidity.Eventually, after he gets slapped in the face about a million times, Pete comes to his senses. Even in this reversal, the movie represents reality, because there are smart people who become stupid through the miracle of LOVE, and yet at some point see the light.I was not prepared to enjoy this movie to the extent I did, having read a lot of reviews, but I have to agree with those who endorse it. It's well done and leaves you feeling good. A most enjoyable film.

How does an entertaining film like this get overlooked and undervalued? Woody Harrelson was born to play "Big Boy" and Billy Crudup does a fine job playing his sidekick. Patricia Arquette gets a little annoying about halfway through the film, but we've learned to expect that from her so that shouldn't come as a surprise.The friction created throughout this film keeps the interest level up and makes for a lot of fun, especially when things really start heating up; Harrelson becomes more and more volatile while Crudup becomes more and more worried about Big Boy's safety, all the while dealing with the animosity and jealousy he feels towards his best friend.It all adds up to a story that keeps you guessing as to how it will finalize. The ending won't surprise anyone, but it still feels right, even if it isn't exactly what we may have wanted. Good movies do that — instead of giving us what we want, they give us a better and more fitting ending.Sure, 'The Hi-Lo Country' isn't the best western ever made, but it certainly isn't the worst. It's definitely one of the more entertaining.

Maybe it's the age we live in, but no one seems to be able to make westerns anymore. The last consistently good period was the late 60's and early 70's, with the works of Peckinpah, Pakula (Comes a Horseman), Blake Edwards (Wild Rovers). There have been a couple of good one-off's since - "Unforgiven" and "Silverado" perhaps. But there's only so many times that you can "subvert the genre" before you start repeating yourself. Maybe it's all Mel Brooks' fault."The Hi-Lo Country" tries to be a non-pc, macho Western, but it isn't comfortable with it and this comes across to the viewer.The script is all over the place, and the film never settles on what its major conflicts are supposed to be.The highlights are Sam Elliot's performance and a poker game with tragic consequences.The film makers also haven't grasped the fact that its difficult to empathize with lead characters who are assholes and don't know it. It's that old thing of behaviour which is acceptable in a 20 year old looks bad on a 30 year old.A waste of landscape and film stock. And an irritating title.

Great to see a new western and this one was particularly good to look at: capturing the flat, wide western country with all its beauty and natural dangers and contrasting it nicely with the badly-lit, cramped and emotionally charged interior spaces of its bars, farmsteads and honky-tonks. Outside there might be sun, drought, wind and snow, all largely visited at nature's whim; inside there's all sorts of very human dangers, including: infidelity, cheating, financial and legal corruption, and witchcraft - which can all be largely seen as a breaking down of loyalty and trust. War, the demands of the market-place and changing times in general, are shown to have bought a dislocation to the traditional rural certainties of conduct and order; the same forces splitting both the community at large and individual families.Ed Buscombe's masterly review in Sight and Sound articulated my own slight sense of disappointment with the film. He rightly saw that the character of Big Boy, as played by Woody Harrelson, fails to convince that he is worthy of the strength of love and loyalty that Pete and others feel for him. As Buscombe says, his antics too often subside into a charmless boorishness - contrast this say with Kristofferson's Billy the Kid for Peckinpah, whose behaviour is equally wild but we never doubt his basic goodness and accept the affection in which he is generally held.The film's recreation of the1940s was very nicely done: with terrific locations and just enough of the right artefacts to suggest the period, rather than an over-dressed museum tableau. The film cleverly slips between that contemporary world and an oppositional timelessness in the unchanging rhythm of the cowboy's life. I liked the way the film's characters acknowledge the anachronistic effort required to follow the cowboy life in 1940s post war USA: "I hear you're having an old fashioned cattle drive" Mona says to Pete, and earlier when Pete suggests to Jim Ed Love, the cattle baron, that "people still drive their cattle to the railhead" he replies "only in the movies".More than a nod then to Red River, with its fascination with the changing demands of the market place and the effects those changes bring to ranch and cowboy. At heart HiLo is not much more than a rather tacky melodrama but its still very watchable: its lovingly shot, it just about keeps the western mythology alive and it has some great songs. It also has good supporting performances from Billy Crudup (Pete), Patricia Arquette (Mona) and Rosaleen Linehan (Mrs Big Boy), in particular.