pug nacious

I bought it because Duval has made great Westerns and thought this would be up to par. But I agree with the majority of comments here about the acting, lousy dialogue, etc. It was a terrible movie. It was advertised and sold as a Texas Ranger who opens a 15 year old cold case has her life threatened. When it was really about, a family feud over one of Duvall's sons being gay and how Duvall's lead character covered up the accidental death of his son's lover who was kicked in the head by a horse, after Duvall had chased his gay son (Franco) off the ranch. How a character that was so savvy and used to managing things and being in control would suddenly lose his mind and not know what to do other than reporting it for the accident that it was, is inexplicable. Likewise, the dialogue between Duvall and Franco where Franco disputes what the Bible says in Leviticus vs what Saul did to David by sending him into battle, so he could steal his wife. He asks Duvall, "which is worse". Duvall's character has no answer, when the obvious answer is they were both mortal sins; and the rebuttal would have been John 10-11 when Jesus saved the adulterous woman from being stoned and told her, "go and sin no more." It was a manipulative, straw man (false) argument. The entire movie was built around the issue of being gay and Duvall himself said, in the Special Features, he felt it was "about time" he made a movie to address the social issues associated to being gay. So what it boils down to is Duvall sold the movie on a false premise to gain a wider audience in order create empathy for gays and give his much younger wife (30 years) a lead role in his movie. Duvall has openly stated that he doesn't want the government or the church and particularly the church telling him what to do. So there you have the entire rationale for the movie.