This movie has all the ingredients to make a great movie. It is beautifully photographed with wonderful western landscapes. It has one of Woody Harrelson's best performances as a hard drinking, hard working, hard loving good old boy rancher. It has excellent support from Sam Elliot, Billy Crudup and Penelope Cruz. It is set in the late 40's, early 50's when small independent ranchers are being replaced by large commercial farms.

The problem with this movie is that is focuses way too much on the three way relationship between Billy Crudup, Woody Harrelson and Patricia Arquette. Arquette and Harrelson are lovers and Crudup lusts after Arquette. This relationship is not believable because Arquette's character is untrustworthy, amoral, and a liar. The woman who is more interested in Crudup is the Penelope Cruz character. The movie never explains why Crudup would prefer Arquette over the much more beautiful and sexy Cruz.

The Sam Elliot character is wasted. He does a good job of portraying the businessman rancher. He is not evil, but all the small time ranchers hate him because he is contributing to, and a symbol of, the end of small ranches. But it is not Sam Elliot that is destroying the small ranches, it is the progress of commercialization which Sam Elliot represents. It is this contradiction between good person Sam Elliot is and the evil that he represents that makes is character so interesting. This movie should have been more about Sam Elliot.

The movie falls apart into silly soap opera / action movie like scenes at the end. It abandons the interesting character study and gives us emergency rescues in a storm, deaths, murders, cover-ups and "dramatic" revelations. Those scenes belong in some other movie.

I really enjoyed this ''modern'' western about two young war veterans coming back home from the war zone and trying to make a living by working as old-fashioned cowboys. Pete Calder ( Billy Crudup ) is the shy and reserved one, Big Boy ( Woody Harrelson ) the risk taker with the biggest mouth and smoothest bluffing skills. Their friendship is threatened by the lovely Mona ( Patriccia Arquette ); an adulteress, sending in mixed signals to both of the boys.

You know, I sometimes don't get it why good movies get low or mediocre scores. The way I see it, this movie has its flaws, but it is almost as good as the recent Brokeback Mountain. I really like this epic story about unreachable love and jealousy at someone you consider as a true friend. Add the intense bar fights, gorgeous scenery and a top cast, I'd say this is a very good movie. The only thing I have to comment is that some of the characters just don't get so much attention as they deserve ( like the Mexican guy or Hoover Young ). It felt as if their characters had an important role in the novel, but there just wasn't the time for them in this movie to give them their deserved deep layer. Alas, I can live with that.

I was surprised and disappointed to see this film only get a 6.0 in the database. I am giving it a 7 because Penelope Cruz, who I respect as an actress- amazing beauty aside- doesn't quite fit into this film. Otherwise, the directing from Stephen Frears, who has tried (it seems) as many genres as Howard Hawks, is solid. Billy Crudup, Patty Arquette and even Woody Harrelson (still want my $ back from NBK even though it's been a decade now!) is quite good in this. It is very hard to make Westerns these days, and I'm sure the box office from this film won't help. But, along with "Dead Man" and "Unforgiven," this film proves it can be done. Worth a look, especially for those of us ( a minority in my generation- GEN X) who still apprecaite the Western as a genre and as an art form.