1001 Club - Lone Star (1996)

#951. Lone Star (1996)

Why It's In The Book: "John Sayles’s wise and witty study of interconnected lives down by the Texas border with Mexico… proffers a garrulous gallery of character…

On the surface, Lone Star might seem a cross between a detective story and a modern Western, but it’s more pertinently the kind of kaleidoscopic survey of a society in the process of change at which Sayles has been excelling for years – ever since Matewan (1987) and City of Hope (1991)… The dialogue is witty and colourful but naturalistic, the performances are excellent throughout, the use of music is characteristically sly and expressive, and Stuart Dryburgh’s camera work eloquently conveys the various allegiances and divisions in the community on view." - 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Member Ratings

Chip Lary - 9/10
"Sayles’ critics complain that he is a better writer than he is a director.  I say give me an engaging story any day, rather than a bunch of 'look at me, I’m an artiste!' camera movements.  Lone Star is a well-written story of parent/child relations, white, latino, and black relations, and the legacy of a man vs. the reality of that man, all wrapped in a 40 year old mystery story."
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marie_dressler - 8/10
"I enjoyed this haunting story about a man coming to terms with his past as he investigates a decades old murder near the Rio Grande."
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Michaël Parent - 8/10
"John Sayles never tries to do a John Ford film but does one of the best films of the 1990’s with this investigation and talented ensemble cast." 
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Movie Guy Steve - 8/10
"It’s a surprisingly deep film for something that really promised only to be half of a whodunit." 
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Nicolas Krizan - 8/10
"moves along leisurely but relentlessly" 
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Adolytsi - 7/10
"It’s not to say that this is a bad film, because it isn’t; it just didn’t have that importance or wow factor that I look for in a film from the list."
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Kim Wilson - 7/10
"Overall, I was impressed with how Sayles incorporated the past with the present in Lone Star.  Yet, for me, there are too many peripheral elements which slow down the overall pacing of the film."" 
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Squish - 6/10
"I’m sure that unique not-so-heavy-on-the-how approach is why Lone Star made it to the 1001 book, but try as I might, I just couldn't get into it." 
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Overall Rating: 7.5/10