Editor Reviews:

Description:
Country music stars Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings team up for this version of the popular Western story about a group of desparate travellers on a dangerous stagecoach ride to Arizona.

Amazon.com:
The idea of remaking a John Ford classic as an all-star country-Western TV movie may seem blasphemous to Western fans, but this loose-and-lanky version of Stagecoach is surprisingly entertaining. While sticking close to the original plot (involving a cultural cross-section of passengers on a dangerous trip aboard the Overland Express stagecoach), this good-natured adaptation (from the original story by Ernest Lee Haycox and screenplay by Dudley Nichols) allows ample room for Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson to play off each other like the old friends they are. As directed by Ted Post (best known for helming Clint Eastwood's Hang 'Em High), the entire production has a light, friendly atmosphere, but the story remains earnestly well-served, and the cast (which also includes Elizabeth Ashley, Mary Crosby, Tony Franciosa, and Dukes of Hazzard alumnus John Schneider) thankfully avoids the in-joke frivolity that typically ruins all-star vanity projects like this one. It's obvious that Willie (as "Doc" Holliday) and his fellow musicians are playing thinly veiled versions of themselves, but they each bring their own legendary qualities to their roles. Gary Graver's cinematography adds to the inviting, outdoorsy warmth of the show, and with many of the cast no longer with us (including June Carter Cash in a cameo role, and Merritt Butrick from Star Trek II, who died of AIDS in 1989), this respectful rendition of Stagecoach is also a memorial to some of the most beloved talents of the 20th century. --Jeff Shannon

Rating : - Maybe not iconic, but entertaining
Is it blasphemy to remake a movie? The answer depends on who you ask and what movie is under consideration. But we all know that the movie industry is blasphemous by nature. So when the original John Ford/John Wayne "Stagecoach" was remade (for TV, no less!) starring (of all things!) country singers (Oh, horrors!), there was a great flood of negative criticism.

I don't think anyone involved in this production intended to try to eclipse or even equal the original. If anything, I suspect it was intended as an homage to Ford and Wayne and the entire western movie genre which, without Ford and Wayne, might never have moved beyond Saturday matinees.

If you like westerns, do yourself a favor. Watch this without comparing it to the original or, for that matter, to the first remake from 1966. Watch it as a western with a good story. Watch it with an open mind. You might be surprised.

It's not Ford and Wayne. I doubt we will see the likes of that pairing again. But it's an entertaining movie with a warm heart. Give it a chance.