To paraphrase Bruce Willis in Die Hard: Yipee-ki-yay … pardner. A new TV movie celebrates the legacy of the cowboy in contemporary times, and how that legacy is threatened by change.
The Hallmark Channel’s The Last Cowboy, encoring at 9 p.m. Thursday, is the age-old tale of parents and children at odds. The parent is a Texas rancher and ex-rodeo star, Will Cooper (Lance Henriksen), whose land is about to be repossessed because times are hard in the business. The child is his estranged horse trainer daughter, Jacqueline (Jennie Garth), returning home after the death of her grandfather, who left her a piece of the ranch. Each has different ideas about the operation of the site. Jacqueline’s relationship with another horse trainer (Bradley Cooper of Alias) figures into the outcome.
Raised in the Midwest, Garth found the riding sequences in The Last Cowboy to be second nature. “That was one of the big draws for me,” she admits. “I love horses and I’ve always been a rider, but I didn’t know I would be [riding while] newly pregnant. There I was, out there in 100-degree weather, wrangling cattle.” Garth had just learned she and actor-husband Peter Facinelli were expecting their second child when she started filming The Last Cowboy; daughter Lola Ray was born seven weeks ago. Garth adds that the producers knew of her condition, so everyone was “very cautious” with her.
The film’s father-daughter relationship meant a lot to Garth since she’s extremely close to her own dad. “I made this movie with him in mind,” she says “We shot it in the California valley where my parents live, so I got to spend every day with my dad. He came to work with me, so it was a really good experience overall.”
Cowboy allows the characters’ estrangement to share time with the endangerment of one of the western’s most enduring components, ranch life. The story is ripe with cattle rustling and horse riding, but also shows 21st century elements such as “ranch-ettes,” which are cutting huge spreads into 10-acre yuppie playgrounds.
While The Last Cowboy is mostly enticing, it also has flaws, resorting to one of the most hack storytelling methods, the quick, pat ending.
Allan Johnson writes for the Chicago Tribune, a Tribune Co. newspaper. Material from Zap2it.com was used to supplement this report.
Show fits Chappelle
People have been trying to design a sitcom around stand-up comic Dave Chappelle for years, but they probably ought to knock it off. The quick sketches, parodies and one-liners of Chappelle’s Show (10:30 p.m. Wednesdays on Comedy Central), his new half-hour series, fit him like a glove.
Chappelle’s willingness to push the envelope of race-based comedy, as in a bit about a blind white supremacist who doesn’t realize he’s black, is reminiscent of In Living Color. A very brief gag about Denny’s, which is too good to give away, almost makes you believe that social satire is back in style.
— Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
