78
Metascore
22 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- A strange and thoughtful story, told in unhurried conversations and artful flashbacks. The things people keep from themselves are just as important to this mystery as the things they keep from each other, and that transforms Lone Star from a mere mystery into something much richer.
- 90Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranLos Angeles TimesKenneth TuranLeisurely yet intense (Sayles does the editing himself), Lone Star reveals a director whose mastery does nothing but increase. Perhaps now his audience will as well.
- The range of characters here is daringly broad, but Sayles is able to touch on the humanity of each (with considerable help from a gifted and eminently watchable cast), and the details of the region -- the heat, the beautiful but often unforgiving landscape, and especially the pride of the residents -- are vivid and true.
- 83Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment WeeklyThe biggest problem with Lone Star is that colorful Charley Wade isn't the center of the movie -- it's bland Sam Deeds. Cooper isn't a compelling enough movie star to carry us along some of the film's more languid twists and turns.
- 80Washington PostDesson ThomsonWashington PostDesson ThomsonThe most enjoyable John Sayles movie in recent memory.
- 75San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSan Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleBy the end, it is clear just how much in control Sayles has been all along. The resolution, though typically restrained, forcefully puts over the movie's point, that we're all more connected than we think.
- 75San Francisco ExaminerBarbara ShulgasserSan Francisco ExaminerBarbara ShulgasserWhile I was watching "Lone Star," I realized that what makes Sayles a good and socially responsible person - his ability to look at one thing a hundred different ways - is exactly what makes him a muddy filmmaker.
- 63USA TodayMike ClarkUSA TodayMike Clark[A] socially conscious sprawler... Sayles' latest never bores during its 21/4-hour unreeling. But neither does it soar, despite finessing a complex flashback narrative set in 1957 and present-day. [21 June 1996, p.3D]
- 40Washington PostHal HinsonWashington PostHal HinsonWhy ... does it feel so lifeless?
- 30SalonSalonSayles speaks the language of cinematic formula so automatically -- his reunited lovers slow dance to a jukebox in a dark, deserted cafe and wait unannounced outside each other's workplaces when they want to talk -- that he's forgotten that real people don't do this stuff.