Monte Walsh (2003 film)

Monte Walsh is a 2003 Western television film directed by Simon Wincer and starring Tom Selleck, Isabella Rosellini, and Keith Carradine. Loosely based on the 1963 Western novel Monte Walsh by Jack Schaefer, the film is about two longtime cowboys whose solitary and predictable lives on the range are inexorably changed when a fellow cowhand becomes involved with rustling and killing. Set in Wyoming and filmed in Alberta, Canada, Monte Walsh is a remake of the 1970 theatrical film Monte Walsh, starring Lee Marvin. The script is nearly wordforword identical to the original original screenwriters David Zelag Goodman and Lukas Heller are credited and a lot of setups and shots are the same as well, but Selleck plays a much more amiable and kind Walsh, to the point that some of the harsher lines attributed to Marvins Walsh are given to other characters to soften the title characters personality to match Sellecks more affable style. In 2003, Monte Walsh received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special, and in 2004, the film received the Western Heritage Awards Bronze Wrangler for Outstanding Television Feature Film.

Monte has a longterm relationship with an old flame, prostitute and saloon girl Countess Martine Bernard Isabella Rossellini, who suffers from tuberculosis. Chet, meanwhile, has fallen in love with Mary Wilder Lori Hallier, a widow who owns a hardware store. As barbed wire and railways steadily eliminate the need for the cowboy, Monte and his friends are left with fewer and fewer options. New work opportunities are available to them, but the freedom of the open prairie is what they long for. Shorty loses his job and gets involved in rustling and killing, gunning down a local lawman. Then Monte and Chet find that their lives on the range are inexorably redirected.Chet marries Mary and goes to work in the store, telling Monte that their old way of life is simply disappearing. Caught up in the spirit of the moment, Monte asks Martine to marry him, and she accepts. Monte goes on a drinking binge and rides a wild bay horse that even Shorty could not tame through town, causing considerable damage. ........

Source: Wikipedia