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Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 0044005868739
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
Label: Polygram USA Video
Manufacturer: Polygram USA Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Polygram USA Video
Release Date: November 02, 1999
Running Time: 114 minutes
Sales Rank: 12118
Studio: Polygram USA Video
Theatrical Release Date: January 22, 1999
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
Based on the novel by Max Evans and directed by Stephen Frears, The Hi-Lo Country charted a long and circuitous route to the big screen, and the final result proves that the material posed a major--and perhaps insurmountable--challenge for screen adaptation. It's easy to see why this contemporary Western was once a coveted project of director Sam Peckinpah; its codes of honor, male bonding, and hardened morality would've played nicely into Peckinpah's artistic legacy. There are clear echoes of Peckinpah in the screenplay by Walon Green (who wrote The Wild Bunch), and while the movie is blessed by Woody Harrelson's vivid performance as a reckless latter-day cowboy, Frears fails to maintain a compelling tone and the rest of the cast nearly fades into the background.
Billy Crudup (Without Limits) plays Harrelson's best pal, just returned to New Mexico from service in World War II with hopes of starting a cattle ranch free from the greedy clutches of a local rancher (Sam Elliott) who dominates the town of Hi-Lo like a bootclad kingpin. Harrelson joins in the effort, but tensions rise when he connects with the sultry seductress (Patricia Arquette) with whom Crudup has fallen inexplicably in love. Harrelson has provoked others as well, and he seems primed for a fall, but The Hi-Lo Country is a film out of balance. Memorable moments are found in abundance, and the film's period detail is impeccable, but Crudup's character is so underwritten and underplayed that his role as narrator and ostensible hero has minimal dramatic impact. By the time fate deals its inevitable blow, it's too late to care. Frears has suffered from similar missteps before (remember Mary Reilly?), and The Hi-Lo Country leaves you wondering what Peckinpah might have done with the novel he so dearly admired. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The fragility of friendship.
Hi-Lo country's plot has already been summarized here a few dozen times, so I'll get right to the element that followed me after I finished this film. The principle friendship, between Crudup's and Harrelson's characters, appear like many of our own at first glance: rock-solid, inseparable, and fixed upon the strongest loyalties. They fight for one another and watch each other's backs like hawks; and yet, when a woman comes into play and divides them, the wheels of their loyalty come unhinged and ... Read More
Rating: - well-acted but mediocre story
There was nothing inspiring or heart-warming about this mangled love triangle; the femme fatale was unworthy of the viewer's sympathy and Woody Harrelson was the consummate big-hearted, hot-tempered heavy-drinking loyal-to-the-end type with a big heart; his untimely demise only makes the film seem to spiral downward even more relentlessly.
Rating:  - How typical!!!!....
Without the perfect cast, this movie could easily be a flop.
But Patricia Arquette is here so beautiful and Woody Harrelson had never played better. Buy Buy Buy!!!!!
Finish... (:
Rating: - A tribute to Sam Pekinpah and Walon Green...
This movie is basically for affectionados of Sam Pekinpah and Walon Green. The message of this film is that the nature of western life is underscored by the propensity of its people to live with recklessness and violence in generational terms. Think of it as sort of like, "The Wild Bunch" aftermath, about forty years beyond.
While the "Wild Bunch" was about the west during the period of industrialization around the turn of the century, "The Hi Lo Country" deals with the period of superindustrialization ... Read More
Rating: - A Blank Spot on the Map
The plot may creak a bit, but the film itself remains a superbly done period piece. It is Northeastern New Mexico, circa 1945, and the prairie vistas are wide open with an unbounded sense of freedom, but one that stretches out to monotonously barren horizons. Homesteading cattle is no easy task in the hardpan Hi-Lo country, and certainly no place for the Hollywood glamor factory. Except for a few questionable touches (Sam Elliott's leering villian, for one), the viewer gets a real sense of time and place, and of what ... Read More
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Copyright © 2003-2008 Gunnar Bengtsson, Poetry Connection. All Rights Reserved.
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 0044005868739
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
Label: Polygram USA Video
Manufacturer: Polygram USA Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Polygram USA Video
Release Date: November 02, 1999
Running Time: 114 minutes
Sales Rank: 12118
Studio: Polygram USA Video
Theatrical Release Date: January 22, 1999