Review of Heaven's Gate (1980) by Dawn A — 04 Mar 2013

Found this playing early this morning on TCM, coming in just as the list of 125 people to be killed was read, and stayed till the end.. Loved it!!! Want to see complete movie now, and hope to buy the long version.

I was saddened to see the comments as "bomb" everywhere, but like one reviewer wrote, the pre-release publicity killed the movie before being seen. Similar stories have killed great movies, such as "Powder".

from the late 90s-early 2000s... I have to say, as an adult who grew up with the classic black and white westerns as a kid thru the reruns, as well as the high environment of western tv shows in the 60s, this I would call one of my all time western favorite.

I liked the grit, the unpolished west as this portrayed, and even though I cried, the sad ending. Yes, this was not a John Wayne movie, nor a 60s version of the wild west with Clint Eastwood, but, a more raw, dirty, dusty, hardworking portrayal of the west that we all missed in our generations.

I think that this is a portrayal that John Wayne would have been proud to have been in, with the realism that he so fought for! 4 STARS!!