PodBill Just what I expected

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

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

Bobster36 I generally find Gary Cole rather uninteresting as an actor. But he does a good job in edgy roles, like Jeffrey MacDonald in "Fatal Vision" and George A. Custer in "Son of the Morningstar." The movie has its flaws. It takes too long to get going and I found the Indian narrative tiresome.But it provides the most accurate Hollywood depiction of the events leading up to Custer's last battle and of the battle itself. Cole portrays Custer as a driven man, but not the madman of "Little Big Man" or the saint of "They died with Their Boots On." And it accurately captures the scenery of the Little Big Horn, not the bizarre desert setting of "Custer of the West." Most details, some not so well known, are handled accurately. Custer's men did not have sabers with them (little did Errol Flynn know). Custer refused gatling guns because they were too cumbersome to haul over the hilly areas the cavalry was expected to cover quickly. Custer couldn't see the Indian village from a distance when it was pointed out to him by his scouts. Custer hastily made his plan of battle after being informed Indians had taken some lost supplies and, thus, discovered his whereabouts. All of this comes out in the movie, so that we don't just get the standard Hollywood Custer-as-egotistical-glory-seeker story. The real story was far more involved than most people realize, and this film portrays most of those events. The film also shows that Custer's Last Stand was a combination of orderly resistance and chaos, as Indian witnesses contended.The film also does a good job with some of the other characters; Crazy Horse, Tom Custer, Major Reno, Captain Benteen and Captain Weir. Where the film misses out, in my opinion, is its failure to adequately depict the events involving Reno and Benteen during the battle. The film does an excellent job with Reno's charge, dismount and retreat to the bluffs, and with Weir's attempt to rescue Custer. But it should have gone further. The film has Weir's company merely returning to the reinforced bluffs. What we don't see is that Reno and Benteen actually mounted a slow moving trek following Weir's path, and all were forced to retreat to their original position where they fought valiantly into the night, while some soldiers who were left behind in Reno's retreat rejoined them after some harrowing moments hiding from the Indians. This portion of the battle has never been accurately portrayed on film (although "The Glory Guys" does a reasonably good job of it). And Morningstar squanders a great deal of time on far less interesting scenes instead of devoting time to this portion of the fight.So, while far from perfect, this is very much the best Custer movie ever made and highly recommended to anyone who wants to learn more about what really happened. I keep hoping that one more major Custer movie will get made and finally get it all right.

Jack_1515 A very good bio-pic as it closely follows the facts. Based upon the Book "Son of the Morningstar" by Evan S. Connell (1984). Gary Cole does a good job in a drama role as opposed to the many comedy roles he's done more recently. The bleakness of the plains and the futility of the events leading up to the Little Bighorn drag the movie down in its tone at times, but then this is a Last Stand saga. It presents the Native American Point of View and presents Custer's demise as a combination of his own folly and bad decisions by the US government. More time could have been spent on Custer's life up to and during the Civil War, he was at Appomattox, received Lee's flag of surrender and was present at the signing of the surrender (and rode away with the table General Lee signed the surrender on!). He remains the US Army's youngest general to date. The movie rather focuses on Custer's life as an Indian fighter.Noted historian Stephen Ambrose (who wrote "Crazy Horse and Custer") supported the possibility that Custer may have fathered a child out of wedlock with an Indian woman, a point covered in the movie and a major plot element. Robert Utley, former superintendent of the Little Bighorn Battlefield, noted a letter in his book "Cavalier in Buckskin" by one of Custer's own officers that asserted such a relationship existed (Capt. Benteen, one of Custer's officers at the Little Bighorn). This is still a debatable point and Custer may have been sterile as a result of acquiring a STD during his West Point Days, according to some historians.

phj-2 I actually just bought this movie(ebay) for a significant amount. Not because I really thought it was that good, but because I`m totally hung up on the history of native Americans, and especially obsessed with the battle of Little Big Horn. In that respect I was NOT disappointed by this movie.The climactic battle scene was actually very satisfying to me, because i was afraid it would a long wait for nothing. I was eager to see if they had managed to bring the great battle to a realistic scale (3000 thousand warriors, enormous Sioux camp). I was almost completely convinced. Both the choreography and the attention to historical details was flawless! All in all a must for "indians`/western fans" but also watchable for people interested in historical/war dramas. When that is said, this is after all a TV-production, and my review must be seen in that context. 7/10

KSIMON I am a HS history teacher and based on everything I have studied since 1961 about G.A. Custer and the 7th, the choice of the actor Gary Cole as "Autie" Custer is a total miscast. Cole lacks the personal magnetism and documented 'COMMAND PRESENCE" of the real Custer and simply does NOT know how to ride a horse. It's not the animal's fault, mounted on a fine horse, Cole looks totally awkward. All in all a great movie that is totally faithful the book and the facts that are known.