Broken Trail

Broken Trail

DVD cover
Directed by Walter Hill
Produced by
  • Michael Frislev
  • Chad Oakes
  • Robert Duvall
  • Robert Carliner
  • Stan Brooks
  • Damian Ganczewski
Written by Alan Geoffrion
Starring
Music by
Cinematography Lloyd Ahern II
Editing by
  • Freeman A. Davies
  • Phil Norden
Country
  • Canada
  • United States
Language English
Original channel AMC
Release date June 25, 2006 (2006-06-25)
Running time 184 minutes

Broken Trail is a 2006 Western miniseries directed by Walter Hill and starring Robert Duvall and Thomas Haden Church.[1] Written by Alan Geoffrion who also wrote the novel,[2] the story weaves together two historical events—the British buying horses in the American West in the late 19th century and Chinese women being transported from the West Coast to the interior to serve as prostitutes—along with a series of Western vignettes.

Filmed on location in Calgary, Alberta,[3] the miniseries originally aired on American Movie Classics as its first original film. Broken Trail received Emmy Awards for Outstanding Miniseries, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Movie (Robert Duvall), and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries (Thomas Haden Church).[4]

Plot

Set in 1898, the film concerns Prentice "Print" Ritter (Robert Duvall), an aging cowboy who wants to buy a ranch of his own. To accomplish this, he agrees to transport 500 mustangs from Oregon to Wyoming, where he will sell them to the British Army. He recruits his estranged nephew, Tom Harte (Thomas Haden Church), to join him, hoping to reconnect with him on the ride.

What starts out as a simple horse drive is complicated when Print and Tom encounter a particularly vile slaver who is transporting five Chinese girls to a lawless mining town, where they will face a life of prostitution and indentured servitude. After he tries to steal their money and horses and is killed, the girls are left to be dealt with. Compelled to do the right thing, Print and Tom rescue the women and take them in, but as they continue their perilous trek across the frontier, they are tailed by a vicious gang of outlaws sent by the whorehouse madam who originally paid for the girls.

Cast

Reception

The miniseries received generally favorable reviews from critics. In his review in DVD Talk, Scott Weinberg called the film "a warm-hearted and gorgeous-looking piece of big-time Western-style filmmaking." Weinberg concluded:

This is one of the very best films I've seen all year. Duvall's clearly having one last hurrah on horseback, Walter Hill does some of his very best work in years, and Tom Church makes a very strong case for his place in the genre. Guy makes for a seriously solid cowboy.[5]

In his review for NPR, David Bianculli wrote that "the series delivers great performances and rough-edged realism—you can almost smell the leather."[6]

In his review in The New York Times, Stanley Alessandra wrote that the film "is much more in the debt of Lonesome Dove, probably a little too much, since it too cannot live up to that legendary epic." Alessanfra acknowledges, however, that the film "has a subtle charm of its own."[7]

On the reviewer aggregator web site Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an 86% positive audience rating based on 2,969 reviews.[8]

Awards and nominations

At the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards, the miniseries received 16 nominations, the second most overall nominations in history, following Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

References

  1. ^ "Broken Trail". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482857/. Retrieved March 27, 2012. 
  2. ^ Geoffrion, Alan (2006). Broken Trail. Golden: Fulcrum Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7394-7021-3. 
  3. ^ "Filming locations for Broken Trail". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482857/locations. Retrieved March 27, 2012. 
  4. ^ a b "Awards for Broken Trail". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0482857/awards. Retrieved March 27, 2012. 
  5. ^ Weinberg, Scott (August 29, 2006). "Broken Trail". DVD Talk. http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/23520/broken-trail/. Retrieved March 27, 2012. 
  6. ^ Bianculli, David (June 23, 2006). "'Broken Trail': Rough-Edged Western Realism". NPR. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5506475&sc=IMDB. Retrieved March 27, 2012. 
  7. ^ Alessandra, Stanley (June 23, 2006). "'Broken Trail,' a Tale of Roping in Cattle and Rounding Up Girls". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/arts/television/23trai.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1332886393-Rgzn0/h7gB28aaIJaOg96g. Retrieved March 27, 2012. 
  8. ^ "Broken Trail (2006)". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/broken_trail/. Retrieved March 27, 2012. 

External links

Films directed by Walter Hill
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
1990s debuts
2000s debuts
2010s debuts