Not Yellowstone, Not 1883: This Gritty Western Miniseries Deserves More Attention

Decades before "Yellowstone" and its gritty prequel series "1883," the Western was practically dead when "Lonesome Dove" came along in 1989 and brought it back to stampeding, rifle-toting life. Based on Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the CBS miniseries was a ratings hit and won a Peabody Award (a far more prestigious honor than a Primetime Emmy, which it inexplicably lost to ABC's bloated "War and Remembrance"). Over the next four years, both "Dances With Wolves" and "Unforgiven" snagged Best Picture Oscars. Suddenly, Westerns were commercially and critically viable again.

This phase of the genre was particularly well-suited to television, where writers could spin long-form sagas. David Milch delivered the greatest Western series of all time with "Deadwood," the pilot of which was directed by oater auteur Walter Hill. Regardless of the setting, it almost always feels like Hill is making a Western. (Officially, he's directed six: "The Long Riders," "Extreme Prejudice," "Geronimo: An American Legend," "Wild Bill," "Last Man Standing," and "Dead for a Dollar.") He's a big believer in the character-defined-through-action ethos, so he eschews backstory as much as possible. Hence, I was surprised when Hill, who's never made a film over two hours, took the helm on the AMC miniseries "Broken Trail."

Writer Alan Geoffrian developed the project with its eventual star, Robert Duvall, and it was initially envisioned as a feature. But all concerned parties decided they could get a quicker greenlight if they turned it into a miniseries (as Scott Frank learned some 11 years later with his stellar Netflix Western miniseries "Godless"). This necessitated a rewrite that gave their tale about two cowboys driving 500 horses to Montana more texture. I'm sure it would've worked as a movie, but I'm glad Hill let himself crack the two hour mark for a change.

"Broken Trail" begins with a prologue set in China, where virgin girls are essentially herded to San Francisco where they're to be sold into slavery. Five of them (played by Jadyn Wong, Caroline Chan, Gwendoline Yeo, Olivia Cheng, and Valerie Tian) are purchased by brothel owner Kate "Big Rump" Becker (Rusty Schwimmer), who intends to use them as sex workers. En route to Idaho, though, their paths cross with Prent Ritter (Robert Duvall) and his nephew Tom Harte (Thomas Haden Church), who have reconnected for a horse drive following the death of the latter's mother. When the man (James Russo) charged with taking the girls to Idaho drugs the cowboys' whiskey, robs them, and absconds with one of the young women, Tom tracks him down and hangs him.

Prent and Tom can't speak Chinese, but they both have a moral compass. They know they need to get the girls to safety. What they don't know is that they're nearing the city where they're to be sexually abused. When they refuse to turn the girls over to Big Rump, they become marked men being chased by a hired killer (Chris Mulkey).

"Broken Trail" is a humanistic Western that gives us two honorable men of the West who risk their chance at a financial windfall to protect five immigrants. In that sense, it couldn't be more timely. Though he knew he was making a television miniseries, Walter Hill lovingly shoots it as an epic, tough-and-tender Western. It might be a tad predictable, but in this age of revisionist genre pieces, sometimes you want to watch a movie where you're fairly certain people will be rewarded for doing the right thing, no matter how inconvenient. Call it the "Rio Bravo" factor.