I am presently reviewing another mystical and unusual movie based on the novel,The Last Ride by Thomas Edison. This movie is definitely a western, set in 1885, New Mexico. The main actor is Tommy Lee Jones and he plays, Samuel Jones an estranged father and grandfather. His daughter has two daughters by different men and is living with another man who is working her ranch for her. Cate Blanchett plays the daughter, Maggie Gilkeson, who has had a hard life, with her father leaving and her mother and brother both dieing when she was young. She seems to have resolved these problems and become a healer on the frontier to help make her way.
The father Samuel shows up for a healing but he is really trying to resolve leaving his wife and family. Maggie rejects him and will not forgive him. The father offers her money to help raise the girls but she will have none of it. He leaves and the next sequence is long, with Lilly and Dot going out to help the round up of the ranches cattle. They didn’t return at dark like they said they would. In the morning Dot’s horse comes racing into the ranch yard rider less. Riding out to the cattle gathering she feels a loss of loved ones and is terrorized with the torture of her lover and the loss of her daughters. In the midst of her grief Dot appears unharmed. She instantly thinks with Dot’s description that it is her father who has taken Lilly. She tries all the logical ways to get anyone to help her, when she finds her father in jail and not riding free with Lilly.
Finally she enlists her father to help track the Indians who took her oldest daughter. They discover more murders and young women missing. At this ranch they are surprised by the army. Maggie is confronted and rendered helpless by the incompetence of the military bureaucracy. Many things happen to make a weaker person give up but she continues on.
The movie is not a feel good western but realistic to the harsh time that it was set in. Survival of the strong wins out and I thought of the question: “How much would you sacrifice?” This movie is in my 100 best western movies and it has a strong message about family. I recommend your viewing this movie again.
