On April 9, Turner Classic Movies airs the 1996 John Sayles masterpiece Lone Star, a multi-generational story of mystery, corruption, racism, forbidden love and redemption. The ensemble cast is phenomenal: Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Pena, Matthew McConaughey, Kris Kristofferson, Miriam Colon, Joe Morton, Ron Canada, Frances McDormand, Clifton James, Stephen Mendillo, Tony Amendola. And the best part is the elegant storytelling of writer-director John Sayles.
The story is set in a small Texan town on the Mexican border. Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper) has returned to his hometown to serve as Sheriff. He hasn’t been in his hometown for many years because of his estrangement from his father, Buddy Deeds, the recently deceased previous Sheriff. The decidedly old school Buddy Deeds, who ran the county for decades, was respected and beloved – even legendary. After Sam introduces himself as Sheriff Deeds to an older local woman, she responds “Sheriff Deeds is dead, honey. You just Sheriff Junior.“
Sam’s daddy issues are mirrored by those of Delmore Payne (Joe Morton), a ramrod-striaght Colonel who has been assigned to command the nearby US Army base. Del resents growing up without his father Otis (Ron Canada), who owns a roadhouse outside the town proper, and Del is eager to unleash his bitterness upon Otis.
Inevitably, Sam finds his high school sweetheart Pilar (Elizabeth Pena) and the two rekindle a bond. Their relationship had been broken up by Sam’s dad Buddy and Pilar’s mom Mercedes, and Sam and Pilar have always thought it was on racial grounds.
Human remains are found in the desert, and they are identified as those of Buddy’s predecessor as Sheriff, the corrupt, racist and extremely fearsome Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson). Wade went inexplicably missing, and he was such a despicable bully, the relieved community didn’t seem to search for him very diligently.
The investigation of Charlie’s suspicious disappearance and death fall within Sam’s authority. Sam sees this as an opportunity to tarnish Buddy’s iconic status. Probing for some dirt to besmirch his father’s name, Sam asks Otis if Buddy ever took money for a favor, and gets back, “I don’t recall a prisoner ever died in your daddy’s custody. I don’t recall a man in this county – black, white, Mexican – who’d hesitate for a minute to call on Buddy Deeds to solve a problem. More than that, I wouldn’t care to say.”
Charlie disappeared before Sam and Pilar were born, but there are folks who were around at the time, Otis for one. Mercedes (Miriam Colon) is now a local business leader. The town’s good ol’ boy mayor Hollis (Clifton James) was, like Buddy, one of Charlie’s deputies. It turns out that what happened to Charlie is not so much a mystery as a long-suppressed secret.
As Sam undertakes the present day investigation, we see flashbacks of the time when Charlie, as terrifying as a T-Rex, walked the earth, and we see the young Buddy (Matthew McConaughey), Hollis and Mercedes. Sayles unspools the story with live segues, in which a single camera shot shows the flashback action at a location and then shifts to the present at the same place. In Sayles hands, the technique is a seamless storytelling device, and never just a gimmick.
Along the way, Sam encounters a flood of memorable, fully fleshed out characters. especially a metal-detecting Army sergeant (Stephen Mendillo), a feisty Mexican old-timer (Tony Amendola) and Sam’s own ditzy ex-wife Bunny (Frances McDormand, in the same year as her Oscar-winning turn in Fargo).
As the story moves to its conclusion, there are two surprising revelations in the plot. And Sayles ends the film with one of the all-time best best closing lines.
Cooper and Pena lead a cast filled with exemplary performances. The villainous Charlie Wade is my favorite Kristofferson performance. McConaughey was essentially unknown, and Sayles said “I needed a guy who didn’t have any star weight but who had the presence to play off against Kristofferson.” That casting paid off with McConaughey playing a callow character, with just the hints of the charisma and authority that he would later grow into. Cooper, Colon and Morton all appeared in previous Sayles films.
John Sayles’ body of work is as impressive as that of any American indie film director – and more diverse: Passion Fish, Eight Men Out, Matewan, The Secret of Roan Inish and some of the most iconic Bruce Springsteen music videos. In Lone Star, racial relations on the Texas border are complicated and dynamic, just like those in urban New Jersey in that other Sayles ensemble piece City of Hope. He first became known for Return of the Secaucus 7, which was probably the model for The Big Chill and Thirtysomething.
Sayles was Oscar-nominated for the screenplays of both Lone Star and Passion Fish. The dialogue in Lone Star is exceptionally witty, and not just funny, but insightful thought-provoking. Sayles has also been a distinguished script doctor, responsible for many uncredited rewrites, such as Apollo 13. (He started out writing the screenplays for Roger Corman’s Piranha and another exploitation movie Alligator.)
Lone Star is John Sayles’ best movie and IMO the very best movie of 1996, along with Fargo and Secrets & Lies. If you miss it on TCM, you can stream it from Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango.
