A lean version of King Lear set in the wild west frontier. Local landowner John Lear gives his land to two of his daughters and banishes the third and quickly descends into madness and realises the folly of his decision.Two of the daughters engage in a blood lust where they plan to go to war with their Mexican neighbour for a land grab.Patrick Stewart seems to be enjoying this version of Lear, Roy Schneider brings dignity as friend and neighbour and one of the few sympathetic characters in this adaptation.The film is accessible but what lets it down is the Made for Television look. It looks cheap despite a starry cast and some of the violent scenes are toned down or abruptly cut.

Stephen Harrigan has produced a script that the Bard himself would have been proud of. Patrick Stewart, in the lead, heads a cast that lived up to the quality screenplay. On the whole, a magnificent film, worthy of a cinema run.

This short treatment does well in general by the story and by the characters. The characters have a certain frontier eloquence and it isn't till John Lear goes mad-- a bit too suddenly-- that you really miss Shakespeare's poetry. The script tries to compensate for the lack of weight in the storm scene by introducing a more pedestrian revelation: Lear comes to understand that peace is better than fighting. Well, duh. On the positive side, we have sisters who are a little better motivated and less one-dimensionally monstrous than we're accustomed to and we have an interesting back-story (with an echo of the Biblical daughters of Zelophehad) in which Lear had intended his son to be heir but the son died in battle leaving only daughters to inherit.Somehow we manage to meet a pretty full cast of characters, and they all seem natural occupants of free Texas, where the inhospitable desert separates warring ranches the way Shakespeare's heath separated the little fiefdoms. The story unfolds quite naturally too, with a creditable amount of the original complexity preserved.The main weakness is the musical score, routine at best where the Texan setting provided the opportunity for something more distinctive and memorable.

Excellent performance by all actors, most especially Patrick Stewart. The emotional range is wide. Very moving film indeed. A film worth watching.