THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 26, 1996 TAG: 9608261196
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, MOVIE CRITIC
LENGTH: 55 lines
THE IDES OF Texas are upon us when a skull and a badge are discovered in the desert outside a small border town. The remains, it is eventually learned, are from a tyrannical and racist sheriff who ruled the town until he disappeared abruptly some 40 years ago.
Now, the town has an unexplained murder on its hands and the young sheriff who is investigating the case realizes that his legendary father is a primary suspect.
``Lone Star'' is a masterful example of craftsmanlike moviemaking as director-writer John Sayles deftly balances a half-dozen stories that emerge as a mirror for the ethnic and social melting pot that is America today. ``Lone Star'' (a title that should not be confused with the classic Clark Gable-Ava Gardner Western) is a traditional thriller the way ``War and Peace'' is a traditional war story - not at all.
Not since the far-superior ``Last Picture Show'' has the mood and aura of a cloistered, hypocritical community been quite so incisively investigated (with a good degree of ``Peyton Place'' color added).
Chris Cooper is the vulnerable young sheriff who goes about his investigation with a hesitation that encourages us to learn things exactly the way he does. Slowly, we learn that he resented living all those years in the shadow of his aggressive father (played with down-home bluster by new star Matthew McConaughey from the current hit ``A Time to Kill'').
The dead man, seen in flashbacks, is a corrupt horror, played by Kris Kirstofferson, an actor who has always been under-rated. It seems that most of the townspeople had a motive to kill him - particularly the minorities he ripped off regularly.
Sayles has never written women's roles too convincingly but there are good parts here for Elizabeth Pena (a schoolteacher who was a former love of Cooper's) and Frances McDormand (his estranged wife).
``Lone Star'' falls just short of being a great film because it wavers precariously closely to preaching, with characters who sometimes sound as if they're delivering speeches rather then conversing. Even at that, it is Sayles' most commercially accessible film. The intriguing murder mystery is the sugar that helps the medicine of social intolerance go down. ILLUSTRATION: CASTLE ROCK ENTERTAINMENT
Chris Cooper is Sam Deeds, a second-generation border-town sheriff
in John Sayles' murder-mystery ``Lone Star.''
MOVIE REVIEW
``Lone Star''
Cast: Chris Cooper, Matthew McConaughey, Elizabeth Pena, Kris
Kristofferson, Joe Morton, Frances McDormand
Director and writer: John Sayles
MPAA rating: R (brief language, sex and violence)
Mal's rating: ***1/2 by CNB