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

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

LTripp I have down the story of 'King Lear' since I was ten years old and I think that 'King of Texas' is very much like it. Suzannah, the eldest daughter played by Marcia Gay-Harden, is very much like the character of Goneral in 'King Lear' who she is meant to be. Lauren Holly portrays the other evil daughter Rebecca somewhat differently from her original character Regan. The one good daughter Claudia (played by Julie Cox) is almost exactly like Cordelia, her original. But Instead of Kings, Earls, and Dukes, they are all landowners, who fight over land. Other than the story is very similar to the original except at the end there are a few things that happen to some of the characters (where they meet their end) that are very different. Matt Letscher, who plays Emmett one of the villains that is based on one of Shakespeare's most interesting villains named Edmund, gives an awesome performance. He also played a great villains in 'The Mask of Zorro', I don't know a whole lot about him, but I hope he becomes a big star. Patrick Stewart is so Lear, you can hardly tell the difference. This movie rates a 9/10.

thejoebloggs Stephen Harrigan has produced a script that the Bard himself would have been proud of. Patrick Stewart, in the lead, heads a cast that lived up to the quality screenplay. On the whole, a magnificent film, worthy of a cinema run.

rickz-6 King Leer plays Mr. Dunson (from Red River).Of course, as an old Patrick Stewart fan, I loved his performance as John Leer. Pretty good accent -- he only slipped once that I caught -- after a series of consistent "hoss", he said "horse." Anyway, the cast was excellent; particular kudos to Roy Scheider.My major complaint is that it just doesn't feel much like a western. Perhaps a western stage play? Most westerns are action=centered, of course, and don't have nearly as much dialog to get in. So, I missed a lot of the western schtick that John Ford or Andrew MacLaglen might have put in. Nice try.

Nozz This short treatment does well in general by the story and by the characters. The characters have a certain frontier eloquence and it isn't till John Lear goes mad-- a bit too suddenly-- that you really miss Shakespeare's poetry. The script tries to compensate for the lack of weight in the storm scene by introducing a more pedestrian revelation: Lear comes to understand that peace is better than fighting. Well, duh. On the positive side, we have sisters who are a little better motivated and less one-dimensionally monstrous than we're accustomed to and we have an interesting back-story (with an echo of the Biblical daughters of Zelophehad) in which Lear had intended his son to be heir but the son died in battle leaving only daughters to inherit.Somehow we manage to meet a pretty full cast of characters, and they all seem natural occupants of free Texas, where the inhospitable desert separates warring ranches the way Shakespeare's heath separated the little fiefdoms. The story unfolds quite naturally too, with a creditable amount of the original complexity preserved.The main weakness is the musical score, routine at best where the Texan setting provided the opportunity for something more distinctive and memorable.