It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I watched this movie on TV last night, I went in blind, all I knew was it was a re-imagining of Shakespeare's King Lear and it starred Patrick Stewart and Roy Scheider. That was enough for me, so I gave it a chance and was pleased I did.Roy Scheider is simply wonderful here, stealing the movie right from under the nose of Patrick Stewart, which is no easy feat (even with his dodgy accent) because Stewart is on top form here too. Your heart just goes out to him. You just want to help him. One complaint I did have was, he gets so far gone in such a short amount of time.A good effort and worth a watch at least once.

Stephen Harrigan has produced a script that the Bard himself would have been proud of. Patrick Stewart, in the lead, heads a cast that lived up to the quality screenplay. On the whole, a magnificent film, worthy of a cinema run.

This short treatment does well in general by the story and by the characters. The characters have a certain frontier eloquence and it isn't till John Lear goes mad-- a bit too suddenly-- that you really miss Shakespeare's poetry. The script tries to compensate for the lack of weight in the storm scene by introducing a more pedestrian revelation: Lear comes to understand that peace is better than fighting. Well, duh. On the positive side, we have sisters who are a little better motivated and less one-dimensionally monstrous than we're accustomed to and we have an interesting back-story (with an echo of the Biblical daughters of Zelophehad) in which Lear had intended his son to be heir but the son died in battle leaving only daughters to inherit.Somehow we manage to meet a pretty full cast of characters, and they all seem natural occupants of free Texas, where the inhospitable desert separates warring ranches the way Shakespeare's heath separated the little fiefdoms. The story unfolds quite naturally too, with a creditable amount of the original complexity preserved.The main weakness is the musical score, routine at best where the Texan setting provided the opportunity for something more distinctive and memorable.

Excellent performance by all actors, most especially Patrick Stewart. The emotional range is wide. Very moving film indeed. A film worth watching.