Years ago Robert Redford bought the screen rights to a bunch of Tony Hillerman mysteries. He's been the force behind one movie (The Dark Wind, 1991, with Lou Diamond Phillips and Fred Ward as Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn) and three television movies, all with Adam Beach as Chee and Wes Studi as Leaphorn (Skinwalkers, 2002; Coyote Waits, 2003; and A Thief of Time, 2004). Redford has yet to get it right. Coyote Waits is the best of the TV movies, but it suffers from the same conscientious flaws that mar the other three productions. It's best to remind ourselves just why Hillerman's mysteries are so good: They are complex yet believable; are set in what, for most Americans, is an exotic locale within a culture which is not well known; and the mysteries are superbly constructed and well written. Hillerman educates us along the way -- if we want to be educated -- about Navajo people, customs, history and the Navajo belief system. He makes clear the tension between modern needs and traditional values, but he does it matter-of- factly, with no preaching, and always within the context of the mystery he's telling. Redford and his team almost perversely get it backward. More than any of the other flaws, it's the reverential treatment given to the Navajo and their land that sinks these movies into culturally-approved lessons. Instead of trusting the audience to take up what they will and learn from it or not, as Hillerman does, we have sweeping camera vistas of the land at dramatic moments; a generically sensitive "ethnic" score that tries to tell us what we should be appreciating in the Navajo belief system; and a need to cram in so many plot points from the books with messages about Navajo issues that the mysteries themselves become disorganized. Coyote Waits eventually settles down to a better than average telling of Hillerman's story, which involves a ruthless search for old bones. A great deal of money and an enhanced reputation are the prizes. There's murder and avarice, rattlesnakes and Bolivian coins and the continuing conflict within Chee over his job as a cop and his gifts as a healer. Chee and the older Leaphorn wind up working together but on parallel aspects of the case. It makes for a neat way to keep the two different men prominent in the solution. The director and writer have managed with partial success to keep the focus on the story. Coyote Waits is far more coherent and with less of the reverential stuff that so marred, in my opinion, Skinwalkers and The Thief of Time. You might want to give The Dark Wind a try. Phillips makes an interesting, if young, Chee. The movie, however, also keeps getting sidetracked into overly respectful appreciation of the Navajo way. The Navajo deserve better...which they get in the Hillerman books. I give this movie a better-than-average rating because, even with the movie's flaws, the team tried to do a better job. When they concentrated on the mystery, the movie works reasonably well.

OMG!!!! It was so cool to see home on the small screen, I just moved out east and was missing the Frontier, and there it was on PBS. You could see UNM in the background. That's where I used to eat, and I used to waltz around that campus!!!! I love any movie that films in my home state; there aren't any real mountains out here. Just grass. Having read the book and seeing it translated onto film is always hard because most of the flow and context is lost. Hillerman has developed these characters over a series of novels, and his fans are familiar with them and need no guidelines. For those that haven't read the book, they probably got lost in the story line. (I don't buy Adam Beach as a Navajo, he's too pretty. The acting itself is fine, though.)

This was my first Hillerman experience. Maybe the slowness of the beginning is necessary, but I was wanting to check out. It got better towards the end with several interesting twists that I was glad I stayed for. I enjoyed seeing the area of the reservation (or 'rez' as they say in the movie) and hearing a bit of American Indian mythology and stories. No special effects, just good acting and a good story.

The second American Mystery! Special from a Tony Hillerman book, that basically picks up where the first one ended. Praise should be given to the producers of Mystery!, the ones who listened to the American audience when it begged for stories from American writers that were set in America. Both Adam Beech and Wes Studi reprise their roles as lawmen, seeking truth this time about an unlikely murderer and the crime he supposedly committed. The struggle between mythology and law continues in this movie as Adam Beech's character, Jim Chee, has to deal with doubt and remorse, and Joe Leaphorn, played again by Wes Studi, reluctantly seeks positive proof about the reservation murder.Robert Redford also lends his name again as Executive Producer, thus ensuring the unchanged production value. There is no doubt that the next movie, due to air in Spring of 2004, will exceed its predecessors in taut, mysterious entertainment.