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Lone Star (1996) First Time Watching! Full Movie Reaction!! (Patreon)

Published:
2025-11-21 04:37:32
Imported:
2026-06
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Lone Star (1996) First Time Watching! Full Movie Reaction!!

Comments

Backlog Andy M.

Very good film. I know what im watching tonight with you guys!

Steve Mercier

I should already be in bed...you guys hate me...but love me...ah, fuck it. Who needs sleep!?

Smooticus

Recommend other movies by John Sayles Matewan Eight Men Out Los Hombres Armados Passion Fish Limbo Sunshine State Brother from Another Planet

Michael SCH

Hahaha I was wondering what your reaction would be at the end! You are right that it takes a few rewatches to understand all the conversations and connections in the film (although you caught a lot more that I did in my first watch). The screenplay is very dense so it took me a while to work things out. The film's thematic concerns are really about boundaries and the blurring of rules and 'sides', and of the complexities of relationships between parents and their kids. John Sayles is known for making films that feel very novelistic. If you are keen on other John Sayles' films, the wonderful 'Matewan' (1987) is the next to watch, along with City of Hope (1991) and Eight Man Out (1988)

Tyler Foster

The question of the movie is: how do we allow the past to affect us, and how will those decisions impact the future, especially with regard to generational familial relationships? There's obviously Del (Joe Morton), who is overly controlling when it comes to his own son because he felt abandoned by his own father, Otis (Ron Canada). There's Mercedes (Miriam Colon), who has these negative perceptions of people who cross the border likely because her own husband, poor Eladio Cruz, was murdered trying to assist other Mexicans looking to come to America, which hardens her. And of course, there's Sam (Chris Cooper), who has always struggled with the difference between the way his father Buddy was viewed by other people and the way he saw Buddy. In the end, for better or worse, all of them break their pattern or cycle. Del tells his son to feel free to make his own choices, while also forgiving his father for making the choices he made (or at least becoming more open to it). Mercedes shows sympathy for her employee Enrique and his wife. And even Sam finally realizes that chasing the grudge he had with his father has brought him to this revelation about Pilar that they are stuck with; had he not been so determined to prove that his dad was the murderer, he never would've discovered the truth. In the end, even if we are rooting for at least two of these outcomes, all of them involve reckoning with the past, warts and all -- the same subject of the debate inside Pilar's classroom about American history, which is about as racist, murky, and even metaphorically incestual (like the Black Seminoles who would end up fighting for the U.S. Army) as the personal events the characters are unpacking. Whether or not Sam and Pilar make the right choice, they make it without any illusions, which in the grand scheme of the movie, is more relevant to the film's overall themes. Their choice arguably calls back to Otis's comment to Del: "It's not like there's a line between the good people and the bad people. It is not like you're one or the other." We see something similar in the difference between Charlie Wade and Buddy Deeds, and the dissonance between the fact that Buddy is still ethically or morally compromised, and yet people like the prison laborer janitor who comes in and empties Sam's garbage can refers to Buddy as a great man, and Otis points out that nobody ever died in Buddy's custody. Ultimately, I think what matters is not whether or not you like the decision that they make, but that you can understand the complicated emotional history that leads them to make it. Like Sam says to Pilar, "I used to think you were the one part of my life that Buddy didn't have a piece of." They know the truth, they're not forgetting it, but they're not going to hold onto it either.

Steve Mercier

One-hundred percent agree with your synopsis. Good shit.

TBR Schmitt

LOL we were like HOLD UP! I'm glad we didn't do too terribly bad with working out some of those connections, because it's definitely a dense film as well, thank you!! -Sam

TBR Schmitt

Oooh love this, Tyler! I think Daniel was getting there in the outro with how each person came around, but I like what you said about Sam and Pilar! I'll definitely keep this in mind with a rewatch! -Sam

Abel Salas Jr

The girl in the scene crossing the river who broke her foot was my scene partner in acting class when I was going to school in San Antonio. She had just done this movie and wasnt very optimistic that it would be widely seen as she described it as a "small independent movie". I really enjoyed the movie.

Samolina Pilchard

First off, love the reaction and this movie. Dan said everyone is racist in this movie (I don't think he meant that and he was exaggerating) - While I don't think that's true, race is obviously the front and center issue in this movie that it treats with intelligence and one that it doesn't set up with Hollywood stereotype "Bad guy racist" vs "Good guy non-racist" or simple resolutions . Everyone is on a spectrum here (as I think we all are) that is a product of their culture, the time and place they grew-up, etc, that runs from arguably the most racist ("Charlie Wade" - who maybe is a "Hollywood" racist stereotype) to Buddy and Hollis, who are products of their times (who do "good things"" but have obvious flaws), to the parents in the PTA meeting near the beginning of the movie trying to preserve what they see as their heritage, to characters like Sam and Pilar, who are probably the least racist but still live in a deeply racially divided community and grew up with the prejudices of their parents. There are other characters who are the targets of racism, or deal with racism in society (obviously Eladio, and Otis, but also Otis's son and grandson, and the private who failed the drug test (who's name escapes me). The movie doesn't dismiss any of them for the way the act or talk (except probably Charlie Wade) but recognizes that they are all trying to deal with a complex societal issue in their own personal way. Again, it's so refreshing to see a movie treat such a topic with intelligence, give its characters deep personal histories that drive their motivations and make them grow, and not try to wrap up everything in a trite Hollywood happy ending. Probably my favorite quote in the movie: " it's always heartwarming to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice." Oh, and I was wondering if you guys were going to recognize the actress who played Mercedes (Miriam Colon). She played Tony Montana's mother in Scarface. Definitely recommend more John Sayles- "Limbo" (which is another textured movie about a community of characters, and has Kris Kristofferson) and "Eight Men Out" (which also has Clifton James, who played the present day Hollis).

Cliff Adams

I spent from the late 1970s through the early '80s taking a ton of filmmaking and film criticism classes. Worked a few films. John Sayles makes films which are delightful for a film student to analyze. This is the best example of such a film. Imagine a huge tree. Roots in the past, a solid trunk, and more branches than you can count. Every root has tendrils; every branch has tiny branches filled with leaves. One leaf is Bunny, the football obsessed head case who was Sam's ex. Another is Fenton, the rubber-faced contractor who we learn will build the new jail. One branch is Montoya, selling crud by the side of the road, who was taking a pee when Eladio was murdered. Another is Carolyn who allows the Colonel to discover Otis's shrine to his son. The details are the texture are the real world surrounding the story. The details make a huge stick into a mighty oak.