- Broken Trail
Infobox Film
name = Broken Trail
image_size =
caption =
director =Walter Hill
producer =Michael Frislev Chad Oakes Robert Duvall Robert Carliner Stan Brooks Damian Ganczewski
writer =Alan Geoffrion
narrator =
starring =Robert Duvall Thomas Haden Church Greta Scacchi Gwendoline Yeo Chris Mulkey Rusty Schwimmer Scott Cooper Donald Fong James Russo
music =Van Dyke Parks David Mansfield
cinematography =Lloyd Ahern II
editing =Freeman A. Davies Phil Norden
distributor =
released =June 25 ,2006 (AMC)
runtime = 184 min.
country =Canada /USA
language = English, Mandarin, Crow
budget =
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website = http://brokentrail.amctv.com/
amg_id = 1:352684
tv_com_id = 67022
imdb_id = 0482857"Broken Trail" is a June
2006 Emmy Award -winningrevisionist Western miniseries that originally aired onAmerican Movie Classics as their first original movie. It starsRobert Duvall andThomas Haden Church , and was directed byWalter Hill .The screenplay for Broken Trail was written by
Alan Geoffrion , who also wrote the novel of the same name. [ (ISBN 1555916058, Fulcrum Publishing, June 2006).] Novelist and screenwriter Alan Geoffrion weaves together two facts — British were buying horses in theAmerican West in the late 1800s and Chinese women were being transported from the West Coast to the interior to serve as prostitutes — along with a series of Western vignettes.Plot summary
Set in
1898 , the film concerns Prentice "Print" Ritter (Duvall), an aging cowboy who wants to buy a ranch of his own. To accomplish this, he agrees to transport 500 mustangs fromOregon toWyoming , where he will sell them to theBritish Army . He recruits his estranged nephew, Tom Harte (Church), to join him, hoping to reconnect with him on the ride.What starts out as a simple horse drive is complicated when Print and Tom encounter a particularly vile slaver who is transporting five Chinese girls to a lawless mining town, where they will face a life of
prostitution andindentured servitude . Compelled to do the right thing, Print and Tom rescue the women and take them in, but as they continue their perilous trek across the frontier, they are tailed by a vicious gang of outlaws sent by the whorehouse madam who originally paid for the girls.Cast
*
Robert Duvall as Prentice "Print" Ritter
*Thomas Haden Church as Tom Harte
*Greta Scacchi as Mrs. Nola Johns
*Gwendoline Yeo as Sun Foy
*Chris Mulkey as Ed "Big Ears" Bywaters
*Rusty Schwimmer as "Big Rump" Kate Becker
*Scott Cooper as Henry "Heck" Gilpin
*Valerie Tian as Ging Wa
*Caroline Chan as Mai Ling
*Olivia Cheng as Ye Fung
*Jadyn Wong as Ghee Moon
*Donald Fong as Lung Hay
*James Russo as Capt. Billy FenderReception
The miniseries received generally favorable reviews from critics. As of August 7, 2007, the film had a score of 78 out of 100 on
Metacritic based on 15 reviews. Charlie McCollum of theSan Jose Mercury News called it "the finest purely American TV film to come along in some time." [http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/columnists/charlie_mccollum/14875524.htm] Allison Benedikt of theChicago Tribune said it was "a gorgeous piece of cinema." [ [http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/chi-0606220356jun23,1,7613626.story?coll=chi-ent_tv-hed Topic Galleries - chicagotribune.com ] ] Alessandra Stanley ofThe New York Times said it was "not as well written or compelling as "Lonesome Dove ", but Mr. Duvall brings an earthy believability to even the most plodding lines." [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/23/arts/television/23trai.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 'Broken Trail,' a Tale of Roping in Cattle and Rounding Up Girls - New York Times ] ] The miniseries received 16 nominations at the59th Primetime Emmy Awards , having the second most overall nominations. It received one less nomination than another film set in America in the latenineteenth century , Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.Awards
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