Reviews

This is an amazing movie. Gary Farmer was given a a role that allowed him to frame the entire film via his performance, and he pulls off a masterpiece. DeNiro very rarely has such luck. While it is incredibly well cast from top to bottom (A Martinez, a charmingly brazen Amanda Wyss, cameos by then-unknowns Wes Studi and the always underutilized Graham Greene, even the seedy car/stereo salesman done dually by Patrick Randal) and each performer knocks on perfection, Farmer takes this to an entirely different plateau.

Roger Ebert favorably critiqued the film by announcing Farmer's performance was "one of the most wholly convincing I've seen", which seems a subtle understatement.

You will not understand this film if you don't get Philbert, the perpetual protagonist Farmer portrays. It's too easy to identify with A Martinez' character, Buddy Red Bow, a hip-shooting realist bent on vengeance. I've been watching Martinez since The Cowboys in 72, and this performance should have given the notice A Level actors deserve.

Unfortunately, the same magic that made the film possible was it's very undoing.

Handmade Films, a pet project by Beatle George Harrison, brought this novel to film. Despite several successful titles (including Monty Python and offshoot ventures), Handmade was spiraling towards bankruptcy, and Powwow didn't perform at the box office because there was no money to push it.

Great art is most often lost.

Don't let your pony throw you. Watch Powwow Highway. Now.

Some have said this film ruins Ruth, yet I strongly disagree. The storyline never gets specific enough to detail his multiple infractions. Instead, it is like the candy-version done in the 50s with far better script, sets, and actors. It's a great period piece with Goodman in charge, at the helm.

Goodman nailed it, and the script fully benefited Ruth's legacy. For anybody to claim this script belittled Ruth never read a decent book on same.

In comparison, the full truth could only harm a great man like Ruth.

Ruth was a complicated bastard of a man. Hollywood cannot portray him honestly, nor anybody else.

Why complain about Hollywood when you all seem inextricably intertwined with the pile of x it is?

I wasn't sold on the idea of watching a film about a rich weirdo and the lawsuits that entail, post-mortem, ala "LIFETIME" nightly movies. I wanted to see Ralph work with Susan, but I still wouldn't have watched unless I researched the production of "Bernard and Doris". I saw Bob Balaban is directing.

I've never seen Bob Balaban's work as director. I've enjoyed all of Bob's acting credits which I've seen, particularly his improvisational skills in recent SCTV/Spinal Tap-quality films. I figure Bob knows the HW weirdness like nobody else due to his insightful improvisations. He gets it.

Therefore, he could do it, and bring it in below budget.

Great direction: Lighting and cinematography were far better than recent films I paid money for. I haven't seen Ralph perform this well since QUIZ SHOW, but he brought his talents to what was clearly a communal table of talent.

Susan Sarandon does very well, and the Susan/Ralph team works. The script works, and sells the story.

Balaban seems to have done much more with far less than this film portends to be, even for an HBO FILM.