Search - Waltz across Texas on DVD

Good Texas movie

Harry N. Howell, Jr. | College Station, TX USA | 06/16/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a good Texas movie. My dad was a Land Man (secures the leases to drill) so I grew up in this milieu. Two guys really can bring in a well if the pay is not too deep. All of the high school guys in oil country worked as roustabouts (general labor) or rig hands during the summers. When two guys get together, we discuss who missed what block or who jumped offside before we talk about women. Some of the minor characters in the movie have the names of real oil men and women. Good stuff."

Entertaining to say the least

James P. Nance | Midland, TX USA | 02/27/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"After years of searching, I'd about lost hope that this movie would ever again become available on video. It's not only highly entertaining with some great actors but will hold viewers attention from start to finish in this engrossing story of survival in the search for oil. Using crude technology and wits, even those not involved in the oil industry will enjoy this movie."

Man's Man Deflates Stuffy Scientist: It Must Be Love

40yo Average American White Guy | Mississippi Gulf Coast | 06/07/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Nicely observed portrait of West Texans at that moment when the traditional individualistic ways of the maverick wildcatters collided with the more sophisticated, play-it-safe high-tech future. Story comes wrapped up as a romance between real-life husband-and-wife Terry Jastrow and Anne Archer.
The film does a fine job of idealizing the nuts-and-bolts of small-scale oil drilling, and makes that far more interesting than you might expect. The plot is clichéd, and the characters stereotypical, but somehow, the excellent screenplay uses familiarity to anchor us quickly into place, and then spends its own leisurely time drawing in the details that bring the whole thing to quite pleasurable life.
It's familiar without being clichéd, fleshed-out without being eccentric, dignified without being pompous. Credit the writer, and the likeability of the cast, most particularly Jastrow, who is quite charming. Richard Farnsworth also stands out in a very effective early sequence.
That said, there's a fuzziness to the technicals, to the lighting and editing and such. A better director could have made "Waltz Across Texas" absolutely sparkle. As it is, though, it's still a small, slightly under-polished gem."