Nora Roberts’ Montana Sky (2007)

Memorable, crazy movie

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Montana Sky opens with the death of the family patriarch, a man named Mercy who like Ben Cartwright fathered three children legitimately, except in his case it was daughters instead of sons. But a role model like Lorne Greene this guy wasn't. One daughter Ashley Williams stayed home and learned the ranch business. The other two were from trophy wives, Charlotte Ross and Laura Mennell. Ross is a screenwriter and Mennell is hoping to escape from a batterer whom she married.For the zillionth time an eccentric will is the thing the plot turns on. The estate after a couple of cash bequests is worth 24 million dollars and the half sisters who don't know each other have to live and work the ranch for a year for any of them to inherit any of it. Eight million dollars is a mighty powerful argument to induce the sisters especially Ross to stay and make a go of it. Poor Mennell just wants to find refuge.There's also someone slaughtering animals in a particularly sadistic way on the place. It could be Mennell's ex-husband Scott Heindl or maybe someone else also has a grudge. I have to say that the three women had some nice chemistry between them or otherwise Montana Sky would not have worked. The vast western vistas are really something, better than the mostly studio based photography on Bonanza. Ross especially impressed me as she essayed a character who saw some considerable growth in character over the course of the story.That's worth seeing Montana Sky in and of itself.

***SPOILERS*** It's when Montana cattle baron Jack Mercy kicked off or better yet passed away that he pulled off his last joke on those who worked on his ranch by designating his tomboy daughter Willa Mercy, Ashley Williams, to take over operations of the massive 25,000 acer Mercy Ranch. To make matters even worse for Willa and the ranch-hands Jack, in his will, had both his other two daughters, who never saw or heard of him until after his death, Tess & Lily, Charlotte Ross & Laura Mennell,forced to stay at the ranch for a full years time in order to get a piece of it, or 33.3%, which was worth some $8,000,000.00 for each of them!All this didn't go too well with the ranch-hands that included Ham, James Baker, together with Pickels, Donovan Workun, and Jim, Tom Carey, who found it very difficult taking orders from a woman! It wasn't long after that a number of cattle mutilations and what seemed like animal sacrifices and poisonings began to pop up at the ranch. Someone was trying to get Willa and her sisters to check out and then take over the ranch before the year was over. But who?As things soon turned out Lily's estranged and crazy husband Jesse, Scott Heindi,who beat her up regularly back in Virginia was out on bail and looking to make his wife's life miserable here in Montana like he did back home! A very jealous and dangerous man Jesse gunned down Lily's Indian lover Adam Wolfchild, Nathanlel Arcand, when he spotted two together kissing leaving Wolfchild for dead and taking a terrified Lily hostage. It's now up to the tall blond and handsome county sheriff Nate, Aaron Pearl, who's in fact having an affair with Tess to get the guy off the streets or ranch before he does any more damage!**SPOILERS*** It's after Jesse is dispatched by the sharp-shooting Willa that you realize that he in fact isn't the person who's been committing all these crimes at the ranch that included the murder and mutilation as well as scalping of poor Pickels. It was Pickel's who had the misfortune of running into the unseen killer when he was coming back to the Mercy Ranch with the daily groceries. In fact the out of control and mentally deranged Jesse was both too crazy & stupid to pull all the crimes off successfully! As it turned out later it was someone else and he was greatly ticked off at the late Jack Mercy for leaving his entire spread, the Mercy Ranch, to his three daughters two of whom he never met in his entire life!Taking Willa hostage the deranged killer gives her the usual speech about how he deserves everything that she and Tess & Lily got and what a raw deal he got out of all this in the late Jack Mercy treating him like dirt! In fact the psycho tells Willa that Jack loved his animals even more then himself! His own flesh & blood! To finally put an end to the movie, that seemed to go on forever,and the crazed killer Willa's boyfriend the tall dark, maybe a little on the light side, and handsome Gary Cooper looking Ben McKintock, John Corbett, comes to her rescue just in the nick of time! Shocked at the sight of the macho as well as strong and silent type Ben Willa's kidnapper, a crack shot with a rifle, lost his composer and missed Ben, who was no more the 15 feet away from him, by a country mile. Ben now getting a clear shot at the now scared in his underwear killer had no trouble ending his killing spree, of both humans and animals, by both finishing him off as well as putting an end to the movie!

Let's let John know he should cut his hair and play only cowboy parts. This wasn't his best performance, but he does look good on a horse and has a great sexy smile. He seemed kinda uptight, but don't think he has played a cowboy part enough. I thought the women played their parts well, but was disappointed with Nate - not the right person for that part. Adam did great and I thought he was the perfect person for his part. Think the movie would have had a much higher rating if it had been a mini-series, so they could tell the whole story. No, the movie wasn't the same as the great book, but it was OK. Why can't they make some GREAT true to life - westerns anymore??

I haven't read the book, but other reviewers comments mentioning all that was left out and changed doesn't surprise me. With 4 relationships in the movie (3 male/female and the one amongst the sisters), running the ranch, and the several "bad guy" stories over a year's time, they don't leave much time for much else in a 2 hour (1:36 without commercials) TV movie.This movie's story just skips along like a stone on water, touching the surface every so often to cause a small ripple that quickly disappears to no effect before finally sinking under the surface. Pretty to look at as it skips, but quickly forgotten when it is done.I was disappointed in the story's lack of depth. Then again I thought of how I like romantic comedies from the 30s through the 60s and they aren't known for their depth. Why I am more ready to accept the lack of depth from these older movies? It may be because they are old and I am more ready to suspend belief and accept the story and characters because the movie is "from a simpler time".Another reason I would overlook a shallow story would be if the actors were movie stars. In this movie the actors were good, but no one sizzled and was a star like Gary Grant, Rock Hudson or Doris Day. John Corbett comes closest to a movie star, but I am a guy so the bar for a male actor is higher and Corbett doesn't interest me. He is pretty but bland.The female actors.... um, who were they again? The black haired, the blonde, and the brunette? The frightened, the Hollywood Californian, and the ranch 'chip-on-her-shoulder'. Three sisters who knew each other? Knew OF each other? More of their back story would have been nice instead of them just being stereotypes.Another reason I would have trouble overlooking this shallow story and characters is the movie takes place in Montana. While I don't live in the Bozeman area of Montana, I live among the Montana mountain ranch way of life and people. This movie is the Hollywood version of the Montana image. The scriptwriters may have spent a little time in Montana in order to notice a few obvious things such as many Montanans dislike of Californians and their rich Hollywood ways. Unlike the sheriff in the movie, the typical Montana man, after spouting off to the Hollywood sister on Californians like he did, wouldn't immediately express interest in her unless it really was for the reason she thought it was for and not the type of relationship he wanted.In other words... the Montana men depicted in the movie are not your typical Montana man. And this ranch and house were certainly NOT your typical Montana ranch!The movie was predictable, but that is not always bad. Sometimes one wants a comfortable movie that conforms to ones beliefs and/or wishes. This movie is that. No rough edges. No major surprises. Reassures one's stereotypes and ends happily.When characters disagreed, the writers were careful not to overdo the disagreements so as not to create a bad impression in the viewers mind that would be difficult for the character to overcome when the 'feuding' characters changed course and became friends (or friendlier *wink* *wink* as this is a romance movie).Part of the problem with the lack of feeling is I am not sure why some of the characters didn't like one another to begin with other than the story called for this to be so. I am still puzzled why the 'ranch, chip-on-her-shoulder' sister didn't like John Corbett's character. Was it because he had flirted with other women in his past and was not a virgin? Consequently when they later liked one another it seemed arbitrary. What changed? I guess time passed and it was now or never for her, though if I were Corbett's character I would have moved on from her a long time ago as nothing she did or said impressed me. This is where a movie star charisma comes in handy - who cares why they now like one another, you just are happy they do.When it came to the bad men in this movie, they were so one-note bad and evil that they were not believable. Watching them in their threatening scenes was like watching the villain at the end of a James Bond movie. The villain spouts off some crazy nonsense as to why he is acting this way and doing what he is doing, then the hero races around shooting until the villain is dead or captured. One puts their mind in neutral until the scene is over as it is so unbelievable. It was the same for this movie. Fortunately this movie was more on the romance side and only had the bad men as subplots to have some sort of dramatic tension in the movie. Just one skip of the stone.Before anyone complains about my assessment of the bad men subplots, that "no, this was more realistic", I disagree. These guys had anger and impulse control issues and were not smart at all. No way do I believe they would act, then wait 6 months and do nothing over a Montana winter before completing their revenge plan. And there are other examples of their over-the-top behavior which I won't bother to mention.I wasn't unhappy with the movie. I was fine with it. When I watched it, it was what I thought it may be, and wanted, a predictable romance TV movie. Kind of like watching a James Bond movie when one is in the mood for a mindless action movie.Maybe the movie would have been better off as a four hour mini-series where it could have had some more depth.