richardsixone — 15 years ago(November 11, 2010 04:09 AM)

I watched this last night and can't say I was particularly impressed. It's the third version of this tale that I've seen and is certainly the weakest. Ledger was good up to a point and certainly put a lot into his performance (as demonstrated by the run and jump onto the horse) but Hudson was simply in the wrong film.
A genuine sense of period wasn't quite there for me and a lot of the dialogue scenes didn't seem particularly natural. Too much of the film just wasn't convincing, despite the comparatively high budget. Having watched the 1977 tv movie version a while ago, I don't think this version is actually better.
The tv movie has inevitable budgets issues but the casting is stronger individually and as a group. Although individually there are excellent actors here, they didn't make a very complimentary ensemble. As an overall tale, I found the tv movie version more engrossing and believable, but given that it remains not much more than above average made-for-tv fare, it doesn't really say much for this version.