JOHN Sayles is one of our most interesting independent filmmakers, also one of the most productive and the most uneven. Ever since his debut with The Return of the Secaucus Seven (1980), he has made his own films, written screenplays for others, worked in television and music videos, and published novels and short stories. The two films he wrote, directed, and edited just before his current one are typical of his range both in theme and in quality: the very adult Passion Fish of 1992, and the very infantile The Secret of Roan Inish of 1994.
Now we get Lone Star, his most enterprising effort yet. Though only a partial success, it is a commendably ambitious—perhaps overambitious—undertaking that makes Texas emblematic of America’s melting-pot essence, and examines the problems and possibilities of this multicultural identity. As a result, the 138-minute film takes on the characteristics of the epic: a rousing story with an overplot and related subplots that sweeps ahead carrying characters the way a flood carries debris, and is thus forced to give each shorter shrift than he deserves.
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