BY MIKEY MIGO
I watched this three part mini-series after the fact. I was hesitant at start, but the more I heard and read about this series made me a least a little bit curious. I can’t remember the last mini-series I watched that wasn’t written by Steven King. Low and behold, I watched all 286 minutes of this program in one really long night. At just under five hours, I could ramble a lot about this. I’ll keep it simple. This mini-series covers the family wars between the Hatfields and the McCoys. This story has been out there for years. It’s become part of the “hill people folk lore”. I always knew of their feud, but I didn’t know the origins. The movie explains that it all starts over some left over animosity from the North kicking the South’s ass in the Civil War and… a allegedly stolen pig. It just snow balls from there. One thing about this that I was cringing about going in was the painfully obvious storyline of “forbidden love”. Again, I had no historical knowledge of the real stuff that went down. Apparently this predictable twist was legitimate so I can’t hate on it too much. The movie just kept going back and forth from side to side. You could understand why each side would be so hateful, but I just don’t get why they just didn’t leave each other alone. It was like they were looking for drama. This is at least how the movie portrayed it. The story just got a little tiresome. When the program started I got the feeling that we’d be showing a few generations of the family war. Instead we see old Kevin Costner (Hatfield) and old Bill Paxton (McCoy) in the civil war and sorta older Costner and sorta older Paxton go to war. The aging of the two main characters was just bad. They barely aged and then out of nowhere they’re made out to be ancient old men. That nitpick aside, it was ultimately engaging. Bill Paxton and Kevin Costner did great jobs at the head of their families. The rest of the cast saw Tom Berenger, Jena Malone, Powers Booth, Mare Winningham, Noel Fisher, and a slew of others. There were also some new faces that made a really good first impression on me. I’d say the stand out performance was Tom Berenger as “Jim Vance”. It took me hours into it to obnoxiously point out that this movie was “Major League meets Bull Durham!” Berenger was a really shifty heel. I hope he gets some acknowledgement come award season. Noel Fisher was great too. I’ve seen him as a crazy cop on “Law and Order” and a horrible thug on “Shameless”. Mare Winningham left it all out there. She was uncomfortably good in this. She should be in more stuff. There was some cheesy shit. Don’t get me wrong. There were long beats and little lines and obvious set ups that felt like it was something on “ABC Family” or “Lifetime”. I’d still recommend this. Despite the downfalls, this miniseries was really info-taining. It taught me the backstory and brought some insight to that era of American history. There were some really strong performances and all in all it was worth the time. It’s not going to blow your mind, but if you have the slightest of interest then you might as well go for it. Check it out! B
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