Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (February 13, 2025)
Though best-known for comedic-leaning crime thrillers like Get Shorty and Out of Sight, novelist Elmore Leonard occasionally branched into other genres. His 1959 work Last Stand at Saber River offered a Western that enjoyed a TV movie adaptation in 1997.
As the US Civil War nears its end, Confederate veteran Paul Cable (Tom Selleck) returns to his family after years away from home. This comes as a surprise to wife Martha (Suzy Amis) and young kids Clare (Rachel Duncan) and Davis (Haley Joel Osment), as they believed he died in combat.
Though bitter from his experiences, Paul wants to rebuild his life, so he guides them from their temporary location in Texas to their old ranch in Arizona. When he finds Union sympathizers Vern (Keith Carradine) and Duane Kidston (David Carradine) took possession of his land, though, he needs to battle to get back what he views as his.
Like I noted at the start, Standdiffers from the standard Elmore Leonard MO given its existence as a Civil War-era Western versus his usual modern-day tales of criminals. That doesn’t become the only departure from our typical view of Leonard, though.
The tone of Stand definitely feels massively different than the snarky and ironic vibe of those aforementioned Leonard efforts. This one comes essentially devoid of comedy and plays it straight.
One assumes Stand departs so actively from the standard Leonard effort because it came so early in his career. Only his fourth novel, he focused on Westerns in those early days and didn’t veer into crime stories until a decade after Stand.
None of this makes Stand a bad project, and in the right hands, Leonard’s Westerns can work well. For instance, 1957’s 3:10 to Yuma adapted Leonard’s 1953 short story and became a quality film.
However, this 1997 Stand doesn’t become nearly as compelling. While it presents a decent Western, it never turns into anything memorable or out of the ordinary.
Nothing about the basic tale involved here dooms Stand to mediocrity. That said, nothing about the inherent narrative gives us a particularly intriguing genre twist, though.
This means a story and characters who feel well-worn and without a lot to give them active personality. We find archetypes more than anything else, and as painted by Ronald M. Cohen’s script, none of them feels especially engaging or memorable.
As noted, the plot seems perfectly adequate but it lacks twists that might allow it to become better than just “sturdy”. Whereas Leonard found intriguing genre curveballs with Yuma, nothing in Stand piques great interest.
Created for the TNT cable Network, Stand loses points because it feels like a TV movie. We get basic cinematography and a film that fails to deliver much flair or panache,
This translates to performances too, as these seem adequate and no better. The characters as written lack depth and the actors can’t find ways to improve on the script.
Not that Selleck or any of the others flop, as they seem competent. Nonetheless, they don’t add enough spark to enliven the proceedings.
Well, we do get to see Osment in a pre-Sixth Sense role. Outside of that curiosity, Stand winds up as a mediocre Western.
