Amazon.com video review:
Not many movies can take credit for bringing about the demise
of a movie studio--but Michael Cimino's ego-driven, overblown Western
is one of them. These days, its $40 million budget would barely cover
the cost of an Adam Sandler film--but in 1981, it virtually put United
Artists out of business. Cimino, fresh from an Oscar for The Deer
Hunter, spent months assembling this ultimately gorgeous and
confusing story of the Johnson County cattle wars of 1881, with a cast
that included Kris Kristofferson, Jeff Bridges, John Hurt, Christopher
Walken, Isabelle Huppert, and many more. Almost four hours in its
original form, the film was cut to less than three for an abortive
commercial release, then restored for video. Anyway you look at it,
this is a mess better viewed as a curiosity than anything
else. --Marshall Fine
