When it comes to bringing the Western genre to television, perhaps the most consistent medium for success is the miniseries. These productions often contain visuals and performers of feature film-level quality, with a story and length that surpass them. A miniseries allows a story to develop over an extended (albeit still limited) time frame but without the long-term commitment of standard television. Western miniseries are great explorations of the scope and scale of the genre and can offer a distinct outlook on historical events. As such, the Hallmark Channel miniseries, Johnson County War, retold the infamous titular Wyoming conflict back in 2002, with a stellar cast that included Tom Berenger, Burt Reynolds, and Luke Perry. While this two-part event has largely fallen out of the public eye, it's one worth revisiting for a few reasons...
'Johnson County War' Is a Loose Adaptation of Historical Events
Image via Hallmark Channel
If you've ever heard of the "Johnson County War," it's probably because of the infamous Michael Cimino flick, Heaven's Gate. The historical range war was so notable that it has served as the backdrop for plenty of other Western yarns over the years, including both Shane and Pale Rider. Here in the 2002 miniseries, Johnson County War, the event tackled the conflict with a stellar cast that just eats up the material. It follows three Wyoming brothers — Tom Berenger's Cain, Luke Perry's Harry, and Adam Storke's Dale Hammett — as they struggle to survive in the cattle business after their more wealthy competitors attempt to run them out. Members of the Cheyenne Social Club, including Dynasty's Christopher Cazenove as Lord Peter, move heaven and earth to dishearten and destroy the small bands of homesteaders, labeling them cattle rustlers, who have claimed land that they want for their own.
While the actual Johnson County War was an event that spanned several years and didn't center on a single family of homesteaders or ranchers, the 2002 Hallmark series is actually an adaptation of the Frederick Manfred novel Riders of Judgment rather than the historical record itself. Manfred's fictional account borrows plenty from the first and second-hand accounts of the Wyoming-based range war, but it centers on a fictional protagonist in Cain Hammett (Berenger). Of course, Cain was in part based on the real-life homesteader Nate Champion, one of the first men to be targeted by the cattle barons and their hired guns for resisting the cattlemen's associations' attempts to remove them from the land. Tom Berenger plays the part well, as Cain is not only a man beloved by the community and a natural leader, but a morally upright one who finds himself on the right side of history.
While the specifics of Johnson County War are largely historical, the general events are pretty true to what really did occur during the historic conflict. The tensions between honest, hard-working homesteaders and the greedy cattlemen who attempt to take the land by force are high here, and you never know who is going to find themselves on the wrong end of the barrel. Not only that, but characters like Luke Perry's Harry Hammett find themselves conflicted by the happenings in Johnson County, especially since he is secretly working with Lord Peter's foreman Jessie Jacklin (Jack Conley) to scrape some heads off the Englishman's stock. This isn't to mention the romantic bond between Cain and his sister-in-law (Dale's wife) Rory (Michelle Forbes), who holds a torch for the eldest Hammett despite her marriage to his brother, and Cain's own unwillingness to sully his honor.
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'Lonesome Dove' Scribe Larry McMurtry Co-Wrote 'Johnson County War'
Though produced by the Hallmark Channel (of all places), Johnson County War is of further note because it was penned by famed Lonesome Dove author Larry McMurtry, alongside his writing partner Diana Ossana. The pair crafted this Hallmark miniseries (which doesn't feel especially Hallmark-y) masterfully, offering a return to form for TV Westerns after years of notable absence — save for the short-lived The Magnificent Seven series and a few others in the late '90s. In reflecting on his time working on this project, McMurtry had some distinct memories of Tom Berenger's final scene. In his memoir, Hollywood: A Third Memoir, McMurtry praised Berenger for elevating the material. "The film had its moments but very few of the actors had theirs — mainly the star, Tom Berenger, who insisted on singing as he was being murdered," McMurtry wrote. "We tried to discourage him but he persuaded us and I suspect now that he was right: absurdity is better than nothing, in the movies."
While Johnson County War has largely been forgotten after all these years — a shame since Burt Reynolds' cool-headed Hunt Lawton is quite the antagonist, a far cry from his tenure on Gunsmoke — the miniseries garnered solid reviews from outlets at the time. Variety, in particular, noted that "everything about the production, from the humming streams to the snowcapped hills, is gorgeous." Having seen the results, we can't quite argue. The sprawling Wyoming landscapes (which really come from Alberta, Canada) and the stable performances by its leads are enough to encourage folks to return to Johnson County War. It may not be the best that the Western miniseries has to offer, but it's romantically close.
Johnson County War can be purchased digitally on Prime Video in the U.S.
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