LONE STAR (63)

Directed by: John Sayles

Starring: Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Pena, Joe Morton, Clifton James

The Pitch: In the ethnically-mixed Texan town of Frontera, the discovery of a murdered sheriff's 40-year-old remains brings into focus thorny questions from the town's recent past.

Theo Sez: Disappointingly clunky socio-politics from the admirable Sayles, taking on all kinds of weighty themes - race, history, father-son relationships - but almost drowned out by the creaky (if metaphorical) sounds of wheels turning and machinery whirring while it sets everything up. Sayles the director - never a major stylist - does corny things like a montage of "research shots", close-ups of old documents and scribbled bits of paper, to indicate our hero working through the night trying to solve the mystery (based on the favourite movie axiom that every mystery is soluble if you just sit down and read through a big bunch of stuff) ; while Sayles the writer builds each sequence as though from a manual, a bit of small talk to set the scene then a turning-point ("So - why did you come back Sam?"), then the meat of the scene, a plot point or bit of exposition, then an optional kicker at the end ("You'll make a hell of a sheriff!") - then the same thing all over again : it's the writing-as-bricklaying school of thought, and those bricks sure start to look pretty similar after a while. Somehow the film still works, because the material - the changing face of the American West, haunted by bad history and past injustices - is so potent, and because Sayles is subtle enough to offer no easy resolutions : the graceful, understated scenes in the last half-hour make up for a lot (Morton especially finding something touchingly honest and fair-minded in his character's obduracy), and the ending itself is a beauty. It's an intelligent film, just not a very fluid one ; it might have been more effective (and less over-rated) if it didn't try so hard to be an Epic.