We covered the 'Kaiser of California' now it's time for the 'King of Texas'.
I suppose the biggest thing to bring up would be easy peculiar accent of Sir Patrick Stewart. Now don't get me wrong, I love Patrick Stewart as much as many other people. But the man can't really do a Southern drawl.
Now I don't begrudge him for trying, especially given that this is a reinterpretation of Shakespeare's King Lear story.
It's just a bit hard to divorce his chivalrous British denominator from his supposedly rustic Texas attributes. But alas I think he's growing on me. Is voice seemed unnatural at first but as the film goes on Patrick Stewart seems to fit more and more into his role as the Undisputed king of Texas.
Now if any of the other characters were incredibly interesting to watch that might have made this movie a recommendation.
But as things are it's just kind of a standard Western, done in the style of Shakespeare's plays. And I haven't seen King Lear in any other adaptation (to the best of my knowledge). So I don't know how well it's holding to the story and where it's deciding to go off the rails.
I just know that there are various factions and a lot of betrayal between family members and possible Alliance as made up with these factions.
Everybody's looking to take over Texas and for some reason Patrick Stewart's character seems to own the entire State. He originally had planned to hand off all of his power to a son. But his son was killed and some undisclosed battle beforehand and now he's giving power to his daughters. One of which wants nothing to do with him and the other two want to use his power for their own vindictive gain.
The film doesn't really get any deeper than that. With the exception of Patrick Stewart's character and this one guy who follows him around. Nobody else seems to have any true character development.
There's a B story involving a horse herder whose flock of horses were stolen by a bunch of Bandits and then the blame was placed on his son.
Thus creating a conflict between the two and where he throws his son away. At some point this horse Rancher gets his eyes plucked out because (I guess) he had loyalty to Patrick Stewart's character?
I'm not entirely sure what was happening here. Patrick Stewart's daughters come to this guy's house and are beating him around for some reason. Maybe he was reluctant to join their Posse to conquer this territory just south of Texas. Or he did something else that upset at them. All I know is he loses his eyes and eventually reconnects with his son.
It should also be noted that I may have been slightly Intoxicated by a watching this movie.
Like most movies I see, I was hoping for something fun. Either a overly dramatic sit-down film and where Patrick Stewart gets to pour out his soul while giving off his best performance of a Shakespearean play.
Or an over-the-top Western action with lots of gang shootouts and typical Western Flair.
The film doesn't really hit either one of those marks. Instead it kind of sits in between the two with one really good Patrick Stewart performance at the very beginning of the movie and one amusing performance of him in a storm when he's at his lowest.
There's an okay action scene towards the end of the film when this gang of Bandits led by Patrick Stewart's daughters decides to Besiege this fortress just below the Texas territory.
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