I happened to catch this the other night when it ran from 11:00 to 3:00AM in the morning. I didn't intend to stay up as late as I did, but I had to watch it to the end no matter how tired I was. Part of the reason,was because the story was true and when I saw those cowboys hang that woman it shocked me especially because I knew it was true. So many great actors in this really showed their stuff, Burt Reyonolds one of them along with the always good Tom Berringer. A way to measure how good a movie is, is whether it motivates you to research and look up the facts behind them. Movies when they are really good, that's what I usually do. I find myself researching the facts behind the story as I want to learn more. One thing I learned that I found upsetting is that at the end of the movie, the bad guys you think get their due, at least so we think. The whole lot of them deserve to be hanged and I wanted to know if they were. If they had, it would have been the largest mass hanging in this country's history. But there was no mass hanging, not even a single hanging. In fact, they let them all go because even more shocking, the US Government ran up a bill for their incarceration which the homesteaders couldn't reimburse the government, so the government just let them go! But the movie ended with a feeling of satisfaction where we sure they got what was coming to them. Better to have left it that way. I hope I didn't ruin it for you as I'm sure you are going to be disappointed to know when you watch the end that they weren't all hanged. But watch it anyway. Definitely one of the best.
Review of Johnson County War
