User Reviews

I really wanted to like this film, with it's strong cast, and a script co-written by Larry McMurtry, tackling the fascinating true story of the Johnson County War, where big ranchers and upstart smaller farmers engaged in one of the old west's most infamous range wars. There has been numerous film versions of this range war, "Heaven's Gate" being the most notable, but none have been great adaptation of the story. This film version boasts a strong cast that includes Tom Berenger, Burt Reynolds, Rachel Ward, and Michelle Forbes (there's also Luke Perry), but I was mostly excited by the involvement of Pulitzer Prize winning author Larry McMurtry, who has previously written his own romanticized adaptations of other old west figures Billy the Kid, Calamity Jane, and Wild Bill Hicock. I was hoping this TV movie was going to have McMurtry's same melancholy romanticized vision of the old west, but it sadly did not live up to his best adaptations (i.e. "Lonesome Dove" or even "Buffalo Girls"). The true story of the Johnson County War is not as clear cut as most films versions make it out to be. Usually the big ranchers are portrayed as the black hat villains trying to chase out the smaller rangers and farmers, playing into a familiar class warfare story of the powerful picking on the "little guy." The truth of the situation was that the these little guys were actually stealing a significant amount of cattle from these larger rangers. In real life, both sides had legitimate grievances with the other and both sides had their own villains, which would have been an interesting story to tell, but this film does not tackle that. It instead follows the standard class warfare story, which if done well could have been an entertaining old west tale, but it ends up feeling like a pretty standard Ted Turner made-for-cable western. Douglas Milsome, who's worked with the likes of Stanley Kubrick and Michael Mann (and also the horror movie version of Rumpelstiltskin), provides the film with some striking photography, but overall I found myself disappointed with what ends up being a routine oater.

This is an expertly made TV western with a top notch cast.

A grandiose kind of story involving cattle ranchers and their feuds with cattle barons gets a first rate production and presentation from Hallmark. The cast is great, Tom Berenger terrific as always, Luke Perry surprisingly tolerable and a very feisty and evil Burt Reynolds looks smashing.

One of the better recent westerns to have come out in long while. Beats out most of these big budget Hollywood releases by a long shot. Highly recommended.

8 out of 10.

Nice to pass the time with this version of the Johnson County Wars in Wyoming, one of the major cattle wars of the 19th Century. Most of the acting is pretty good. Burt Reynolds is a bit over the top. Looks like the cast had fun dressing up. Pretty scenery. The UK ranching baron is a bit too prissy. So it was a Wyoming story shot in Canada, and yet another cowboy movie in which someone sang "The Cowboy's Lament," a song first published in 1910. The Johnson County War ran from 1889 to 1893.

Johnson County War: The Series Based on a true event, is in a class with the likes of movie greats, Tom Horn, Lonesome Dove or The Jackbull. Coherent writing, attention to detail of the period for which the series took place, i.e.: clothing, set decoration, realism. Staring Tom Berenger & Luke Perry who play brothers, are completely believable cowboys comfortable on horseback or living in the back and beyond, play out this drama. The acting was excellent for the entire cast with the benefit of the great Wyoming vistas. A seeming look at the way it must have been, because it feels real.

I happened to catch this the other night when it ran from 11:00 to 3:00AM in the morning. I didn't intend to stay up as late as I did, but I had to watch it to the end no matter how tired I was. Part of the reason,was because the story was true and when I saw those cowboys hang that woman it shocked me especially because I knew it was true. So many great actors in this really showed their stuff, Burt Reyonolds one of them along with the always good Tom Berringer. A way to measure how good a movie is, is whether it motivates you to research and look up the facts behind them. Movies when they are really good, that's what I usually do. I find myself researching the facts behind the story as I want to learn more. One thing I learned that I found upsetting is that at the end of the movie, the bad guys you think get their due, at least so we think. The whole lot of them deserve to be hanged and I wanted to know if they were. If they had, it would have been the largest mass hanging in this country's history. But there was no mass hanging, not even a single hanging. In fact, they let them all go because even more shocking, the US Government ran up a bill for their incarceration which the homesteaders couldn't reimburse the government, so the government just let them go! But the movie ended with a feeling of satisfaction where we sure they got what was coming to them. Better to have left it that way. I hope I didn't ruin it for you as I'm sure you are going to be disappointed to know when you watch the end that they weren't all hanged. But watch it anyway. Definitely one of the best.

I enjoyed the movie for its entertainment value. But a movie titled The Johnson County War should endeavor to tell the story of its namesake. Especially since it is not a well known event and viewers are likely to accept the movie as historically accurate.

The basics are intact. The cattle barons declared war on the small ranchers over the issue of open range. The small ranchers were liberally declared rustlers in order to justify prosecuting them with extreme prejudice. A small army of mercenaries was hired to do the dirty work. Those familiar with the history of the Johnson County War know that a rancher named Nate Champion stood off the mercenary army in his cabin for a considerable length of time.

The movie takes that event and fictionalizes it with Tom Berenger's Cain Hammett making that stand instead of Nate Champion. The details of that fight are fairly accurate. But Berenger's character is fictitious, with subplots about brothers and spouses. It is not Nate Champion by another name. So it makes little sense to me to make a movie about a historical event and pretend that it happened to someone different. Kind of like Custer's Last Stand with some fictitious guy named Clyde Smith as the leader of the Cavalry instead of Custer.

The movie makes for a good western. But Nate Champion's story is entertaining in itself. Christopher Walken portrayed him in Heaven's Gate, which is also about the Johnson County War. But in that movie, director Michael Cimino took the names of Jim Averill and Ella Watson, two small ranchers hanged early in the dispute, and assigned them to the Marshall portrayed by Kris Kristofferson and the prostitute portrayed by Isabelle Huppert.

The Johnson County War is a little known and interesting part of American history. Too bad that movie makers play so fast and loose with the facts.

This was an interesting film being shot half in the snow and half on dry ground. However, the sound department should realize that the sound of horses running in twelve inches of snow is much different than hoofs hitting dry ground. They just added canned hoof sounds no matter what. Fortunately for the male characters, the three female characters just happened to be the three hottest chicks in Wyoming. Wow, what are the chances? And those three ladies (whose families were just eking out a living on small cattle ranches) wore the fanciest (low cut) dresses west of the Mississippi. One would think that movie directors and costume designers would take a look at some actual photos from the 1800s to see what people wore. Instead they simply go to the standard "Hollywood cowboy" closet and pull out clothes. Most of the hats on background extras in this movie look like they've never been worn before. Or at least certainly show no wear. I really do love Western movies, but simply don't understand why movie makes don't put in some more effort to make their films a little more realistic. I won't even mention that cabins, fences and outbuildings, presumably built by these homesteaders, appear like they have been there for a hundred years. Maybe they just built with really old logs.

I found this western drama to be very watchable. It tells the tale of small ranchers (brothers Tom Berenger, Adam Storke and Luke Perry). These three brothers are trying to protect their property from the rich and powerful ranchers who wish to drive them away, through devious and murderous means.

The entire cast is very good -- Adam Storke is (in my opinion) under-appreciated, and he is very likeable in this movie as middle brother Dale. Luke Perry does an admirable job as younger brother Harry. Tom Berenger is excellent, (as he always is) playing eldest brother Cain. Also in the cast are Rachel Ward as a tough but likeable prostitute, and Burt Reynolds as an evil hired gun.

Beautiful scenery, an excellent musical score, good writing and a top-notch cast make this a worthwhile movie to see.

I had a feeling a third of the way in that, although 1 hour had already passed, this film was still going to feel like a regular length movie. It did. After watching this I wonder how any movie can not be 3 hours in length. The story was told well, built up nicely, climaxed grippingly, and then faded, well, awfully. Yea, didn't like the ending much. After 3 hours, could you believe it, I still wanted more.

The acting was perfect. At first you wonder who all these people are, it's a confusing cast of characters with a Marshal, and sheriff, the hired hand, his assistant, the rich British bad guy, 7 other rich guys in the high society club, the good guys, just so many people. And they're all speaking this 19th century Wyoming English that you struggle at first to know what the heck anyone's talking about, but I realized that the story will carry me through these patches. They sure did, Ma'am, and by hour 2 these people were my family and I was living he homesteading life (had to pause to Wikipedia what a Homestead was but that was worth the quick break and really educational).

I liked how, even though the British rich bad guy and his butler were evil jerks for "everything" they caused (I'm keeping this spoiler- free), they still managed to be hilarious at the same time ("Quick thinking, Sir" had me bursting). It added some good relief for this heavy drama. So we have heavy drama, a touch of comic relief, tons of action, romance, and of course the town prostitute who everyone respects, yes this movie had everything.

I watched this movie because I've decided to travel through all of Luke Perry's movies after marathoning 90210 and wishing for more of the Dylan McKay character. He does that in some of his later roles. In this one he does not but he plays this role perfectly. Same goes for everyone else.

The writing was exceptional. Sometimes the rare line is tossed out that is a bit cliché, but perhaps that's to be expected for a Western, no? The rest of the while the dialogue was incredible, the way everyone spoke was so appropriate sounding. Everyone sounded like in those days people just spoke smarter than we do now.

All in all, I enjoyed, then I was gripped, and I was moved. Great Hallmark movie that I highly recommend.

I understand this is not historically accurate, but it is a first class western. An excellent cast, excellent scenery and well paced. I will watch it again.

Like most made for TV movies, The Johnson County War writers try and use pieces of actual history to convince people killing small ranchers can in some twisted way, be humorous. The actual Johnson County War was nothing but a massacre of the poor ranchers by Cattle barrons and political cronies.

I'm 6 minutes in and just before the acting couldn't get any worse, in walks Luke Perry. Life is too short to watch crappy movies. I'm not sticking around long enough to give spoilers. Time to change the channel

This movie inspired me to do further research. There really was a Johnson County war in Wyoming. A number of events in the film, which I thought had to be fiction because they were so unbelievable, actually did happen although the names of the characters had been changed. The range wars of the West were extremely vicious.

Tom Berenger does a very good job and is very much the hero. The rest of the cast are also very good, particularly Michelle Forbes, Luke Perry, and Christopher Cazenove. Frankly, the scenery steals the picture. The mountains and the surrounding forests and streams are incredible and beautifully shot by the cinematographer.

Typical TV movie: mediocre acting, contrived dialogue, basic point-and-shoot directing. What's an even greater tragedy is that Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" never rises above this.

I thought that this TV miniseries was really great. It starts out a little slow, but it makes perfect sense as the plot advances further. The characters were developed and likely, and some repulsive (in a good way). The acting was highly professional, and i think the casting for the film was right on the mark. Tom Berenger did a spectacular acting job with the lead character of Cain Hammett. Luke Perry, Burt Reynolds and Jack Conley also acted quite admirably.

I especially enjoyed the last hour of the movie. It was highly action packed as much as any pure action movie would be. I was very tense just watching it all, i was cheering when the bad guys got gunned down in the epic end battle...which is unusual for me to do so. This was a major gun battle!

If you like Westerns made right, then you'll love Johnson County War.

If you love the wide open space of horse & cattle country, you'll love this mini-series!

Spoiled rich cattle barrons in the 1800's want to drive out the poor squatter/settlers who gather up & keep any stray calves they may find. But that's not the real reason they have to be driven out. It's just plain greed & prejudice.

Rachel Ward is always likable & here plays a harlot w/a newspaper-writing husband.

Tom Berenger is clearly the star of this series & is the eldest & most respected of the 3 Hammett brothers doing battle w/the barrons & trying to keep the peace. Luke Perry is certainly playing a different role here & deservedly so. I heard he didn't know how to ride a horse before he signed on for this part. You'd never know it watching him do practically nothing BUT riding in this! (Goodbye, 90210!)

The ending is too long for my taste & is very disappointing. I will not spoil it here by telling you who else is killed though.

One romantic scene I must comment on: When Berenger is getting his hair cut out on the porch by his widowed sister-in-law. Ladies, you will totally melt...

This is a GREAT movie!! - The previous comment does not do it justice. In the steps of "Conagher," "One Man's Hero" (also Berenger), and "The Jack Bull," this movie speaks volumes about integrity, personal accountability & human worth. The ending is AWESOME. Could you do it? Is anything worth that much of you? If it matters, - if anything upright, ethical holds any position of importance to your psyche, you will understand when you see this motivating, way-overlooked treasure.

Tom Berenger is GORGEOUS! He plays a very strong character worthy of praise & remembrance!

Luke Perry's role far outplays '90210' and compares favorably to "8 Seconds."

The plot is easy to follow and enticing. The filming is magnificent, intelligent and complimenting of the plot & actors' accomplishments here.

A GREAT MOVIE!!