This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Trailmates
Plot Overview
Working ranch hand Tom Harte (Thomas Haden Church) in 1898 John Day County, Oregon, receives unexpected news when his uncle Prentice “Prent” Ritter (Robert Duvall) rides up. It's like a page from a C.J. Box novel wherein Tom was:
seen as a turncoat—a climber—who abandoned his multigenerational family legacy … [by] the phenomenon known throughout the Mountain West as “the curse of the third generation,” wherein the founders of the ranch passed it on to their children who later passed it on to their children. But it was that third generation where the situation sometimes went nuclear: the family members who either did or didn't want to carry on the tradition, members who wanted to sell the whole place to get out and avoid taxes, members who went to war with brothers and sisters for what they saw as their rightful inheritance. (28)
I left as soon as I could get out of that place. That isn't done in the Kleinsasser family. No one ever leaves. It doesn't matter if you make your own way in the world and don't ask them for anything. The problem is you left in the first place. That's considered the ultimate act of disloyalty. With them it means you look down on them and they resent you for it. (41)
Tom's mother “never forgave me for leaving the ranch.” He sent money home at the end of every season, but it didn't matter. “She never got over my running off to Buckaroo.” His uncle well understood that “losing your pa made her a hard woman.” She has now died and left her entire estate to her brother in her will. Prent sympathizes with Tom's plight who has no viable opportunities. He offers him a deal to go in with him 25%–75% on a drive of wild mustang horses to Wyoming in answer to an advert to support “the British army needing horses for the Boer war.”
On their way they pick up a musician
Henry “hank” Gilpin as a third hand who came from the
East to answer the allure of the West. They are joined in transit
by Captain Billy Fender (James Russo) transporting fresh meat
from Chinatown to lonesome miner camps. This convoy of
“war profiteers” & human trafficker doesn't
last long when the latter proves himself unworthy of their
company (“Man like that ain't worth the food he eats, much
less the price of your rope.”) That leaves the cowboys to
take care of the Oriental cargo whom they attempt to unload in
Cariboo City, Idaho, the first town they come to, but that's
tantamount to abandonment, so instead they pick up an abused whore
Nola Johns (Greta Scacchi) and a much needed interpreter Lung Hay
(Donald Fong.) Nola's abuser Ed “Big Ears” Bywaters
(Chris Mulkey) having just got out of prison pursues them with his
boys, Nola being the Judas who betrayed him, as well as the local
madame Big Rump Kate (Rusty Schwimmer) offering him a reward for
her misplaced girls, not to mention their regular rustling booty.
Ideology
Prent confides, “I know my
sister could be a difficult woman. Comes from being German and
Huguenot, I suppose. Sure enough makes for a starchy person to have
to live with.” Huguenots were 15th & 16th century French
Protestants; Germany was where Martin Luther started Protestantism.
Since they were siblings, Prent was German, too, but he wasn't
straitlaced, so he wouldn't have been Huguenot. His sister
acquired that on her own. Perhaps that's why when her husband died,
she hardened her heart; she'd lost her dear Huggy. Did she convert
to it before or after she married him? Does it make any difference?
Conventional wisdom has it that if a body is already married to a non-Christian when the former converts, she is allowed to stay with him and try to save him. He's a nice guy to begin with, otherwise she wouldn't have married him. But a Christian girl should not select a non-Christian for a mate, because he's an ogre. I can't help but think we're not comparing apples with apples here. We can do better.
In
answer to the Corinthians' questions
regarding the mixed marriages they were entering into during his
preaching, the apostle Paul writes of same as an occasion for
Christian influence on the unbelieving spouse, (1Cor. 7:16) “For what knowest
thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest
thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?” Paul was not
doing any matchmaking, but let us try ourselves for an
apple-to-apple comparison. A man has two daughters, say, and being
just and fair he lines up matches of equal integrity for both of
them. Daughter A is to get married in June and daughter B June the
following year. This is during the two year stint when Paul is
preaching nearby. Before B is wed, though, the sisters attend a
meeting and become Christians. A is obligated to try to convert her
spouse, and B wanting to follow suit determines to go ahead and
marry her guy, too, and try to convert him as well. He isn't any
worse to start off with than her sister's husband was for her. They are
like two peas in a pod, one sister following in the other's footsteps.
The
apostle's authority was expressed in: (1Cor.
3:21-22) “For all things are yours; Whether …
the world, … or things present, or things to come; all are
your's.” Sister A's husband of the world is hers to keep
(“things present”) and so is sister B's husband
“to come,” as long as they are willing as we suppose
they are. By apostolic decree, then, a Christian is allowed to
enter a mixed marriage if that's what they want. The same could be
said of any Jewish cult for that matter. It wouldn't matter the
order in which it occurred, the same benefits or challenges would
accrue either way. It's the cults, however, that tend to
restrict interaction with the world, (1Tim. 4:3-5) “Forbidding to
marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created
to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and
know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to
be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is
sanctified by the word of God and prayer.” Muslims, for
instance, are allowed to marry only to “people of the
book,” i.e. Muslims,
Christians or Jews. And they're not allowed to eat pork. Christians are
more open to the world's stuff according to their preferences.
The Chinese women in this film coming
from a culture of high cuisine have an aversion to “cowboy
chuck” and don't know what to make of a fancy dinner
(“Shenma
dongshi?”) The end notes show a mixed marriage between
a Chinese woman and a cowboy, which wouldn't have been allowed in
Calif. or Oregon or Idaho by the anti-miscegenation laws in
effect there at the time. Ken Johnson, Th.D. quotes
Mathetes—a.d. 130—who studied under Paul:
“Christians follow the customs of their native lands in
regard to marriage, food, clothing, and conduct. They marry and
have children, but they never have abortions. They obey all the
laws of their country” (86.) Prent confesses, “Miss
Johns, I'm a totally failed Christian person.” His
erstwhile, Christian wife “even got me baptized.”
Paul advises, (1Cor. 7:29-31)
“But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth,
that both they that have wives be as though they had none; And they
that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as
though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they
possessed not; And they that use this world, as not abusing it: for
the fashion of this world passeth away.” All the drama of
marriage can be distracting to a fellow. Prent allows, “The
habits and ambitions of women are more a mystery to me than Egyptian
hieroglyphics and I ain't found a Rosetta Stone yet.”
Women have reciprocal issues. This shows up in
instructions to widows, (1Cor. 7:39) “The wife is bound
by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be
dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the
Lord.” “Only in the Lord” has to do with (1Cor. 7:34) “There is difference
also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for
the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in
spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world,
how she may please her husband.” The group of two men and
four women stayed in two rooms at the saloon/bordello
though the room at the end of the hall had six beds in it. And the
widow had the preferred option of remaining single, (1Cor. 7:40) “But she is happier
if she so abide, after my judgment.”
In the sacred dialect of the King James Version (KJV), thee & thou are second person singular pronouns referring to the one addressed, in the objective & subjective case respectively. Plural would be you or ye. Webster defines, “ye pron you 1 — used orig. only as a plural pronoun of the second person in the subjective case and now used esp. in ecclesiastical or literary language and in various English dialects.”
Today's standard English employs you—sometimes you understood—in all 2nd person cases. This is a step down in language refinement. As H.W. Fowler discusses in an article:
Any word that does the work of two or more by packing several notions into one is a gain (the more civilized a language the more such words it possesses), if certain conditions are observed: it must not be cumbersome; it should for choice be correctly formed; & it must express a compound notion that is familiar enough to need a name. (175–76)
Thus actress is an improvement over female actor. Likewise is thee, thou, you, ye more refined than you, you, you, you, the latter four needing context from which to derive its number and case. The objections many Christians in general hold to believers marrying nonbelievers, despite the fact that St. Paul allows it, comes from stretching his prohibition against mixed congregations of a plural ye, (2Cor. 6:14) “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: ...” way back to singular marriage in his earlier epistle. In our movie, however, Prent follows the admonition aright in his eulogies, “We're all travelers in this world, from sweet grass to packing house, birth till death we travel between the eternities.” No reference is made to the Buddhist circle of reincarnation.
Paul said he's defrauded nobody (1Cor. 7:2), which some fathers back then would undoubtedly take issue with had he put the kibosh on favorable ($) wedding arrangements in the works. He asked a telling rhetorical question, true, but he never actually forbad mixed marriages. If the parties backed out, that's on them. In our movie Big Rump Kate has kittens when the cowboys ride off with her girls: “What about my property!”
Production Values
The TV mini series “” (2006) was directed by Walter Hillold. It was written by Alan Geoffrion. It stars Robert Duvall, Thomas Haden Church and Greta Scacchi. Church was very good as a cowboy at loose ends. The whole cast was excellent, taking turns at center stage. It is presented as two episodes on separate discs with fades to black for insertion of commercials.
It's not rated but moderately racy. It features exceptional scenery shot in Canada. As a Western it's up there with the best. Runtime ≈ 3 hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
This was a well balanced picture between a herd drive, cross-culture, and shoot-'em-ups. It seemed like the real West and should appeal to a wide audience.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Well done action flick. Suitability for children: Not rated. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Fit For a Friday Evening. Suspense: Some suspenseful moments. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture is quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software, print.
Box, C.J. The Bitterroots. Copyright © 2019 by C.J. Box. New York: Minotaur Books, 2019. Print.
Fowler, H.W., A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. USA. Oxford UP. 1926–1946. Print.
Mathetes, Epistle to Diognetus 5. Quoted in Ken Johnson, Ancient Church Fathers. Copyright 2010 by Ken Johnson. San Bernadino, CA, 07 April 2018. Download print.
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, Mass.: MERRIAM-WEBSTER. 1984. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org