Deadwood: The Movie

The result seems more like a gift from the storyteller to himself, in addition to its value as a summation, benediction, and farewell, a final parting remark on the thoroughfare before tipping the hat and turning to walk away: Say good-bye to Deadwood, and remember. ... More than anything else, we come away from the film feeling healed somehow. It’s not about any specific promises or assurances. It’s more of a mood. A vibe.

It’s a perfect, long-delayed swan song that offers satisfying endings for almost every member of the cast while still managing to tell a story that stands on its own: an examination of how American civilization formed a thin veneer over the ruthlessness that helped create it. As such, Deadwood: The Movie feels like an elegy for the “golden age of TV.”

Deadwood’s trademark blend of literacy and crudity continues to harmoniously co-exist. ... Deadwood: The Movie ends with beautifully paired scenes featuring Bullock and Swearengen. Both are moving in their own distinctive ways, bringing one of HBO’s very best series to an end that does David Milch proud. Very proud indeed.

The highest compliment you can pay “Deadwood: The Movie” is that it is the continuation and the conclusion that both the series and its fans deserved. It’s just that good. It’s powerful, at times profound, at times bittersweet.

Good men die. Bad men prosper. That’s life. What feels miraculous about "Deadwood: The Movie" is how much it captures the comfortable humanity in between those two extremes. It feels like the product of a creator who fully understands that this is his last creation, but even he refuses to end on an easy note. There can be closure without sentimentality.

With the passage of time — all the characters look older, some more world-weary than others — there’s an elegiac quality to the tone of the whole piece as we see in the eyes of some characters the contemplation of what might have been and the quiet acceptance in some that their lives are drawing to a close. Knowing that series creator and the film’s writer, David Milch, 74, now suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, makes the whole endeavor feel even more personal and acute.

It's so good and so satisfying that it's worth diving back into this brutal, expletive-laden world headfirst and without distraction.

There’s something to be said for not going quietly into that good night, and “Deadwood” rages as ferociously and purposefully as ever — never flailing about for show, or succumbing to the wishes of those who will live on after they’re gone. These characters, this film, and David Milch himself are here to honor the time they had by adding a brilliant final chapter in the here and now.

What struck me most were not the tragedies of Deadwood: The Movie, but instead its indelible joys: the humanity that refuses to be stifled and shut away, even in this hardscrabble existence.

The movie has an incredibly satisfying, at times emotionally overwhelming, final act. ... The almighty creator of this great TV show, and this superb farewell film, bestows exceptional kindness and generosity upon his greatest creation here at the end.

Though colored by a bittersweet note of melancholy from the passage of time and memory in a way that inevitably draws a dotted line to Milch himself, “Deadwood” seamlessly falls into step with its celebrated past.

A compliment, even if it might not sound like one: Deadwood: The Movie feels like the best TV episode of 1997. ... There is so much here that will be rich and meaningful to any TV fan, and its story is self-contained enough that you could use it as an entry point to the entire series. (That is, if you don’t mind being spoiled on several major events from all three seasons, which are depicted in flashbacks.)

The movie serves as a lovely farewell to Milch’s show. ... It’s not sentimental so much as poignant.

For those wondering about the show’s charms, this is a nearly impossible point to work backward from. As a series capper, it’s a satisfying, loving end that fulfills old Deadwood’s imperfect promises while mostly avoiding the pitfalls of nostalgia.

This movie is a gift, and a fond farewell. ... The scope of Deadwood: The Movie won me over.

It’s about the progression of entropy to organization, individual agents of chaos coalescing into a civilization—collections of cells, each aggregate a smaller, separate life. David Milch is also a believer that time is the true subject of all stories. Deadwood: The Movie is both of these philosophies in practice, in addition to an emotionally nourishing, necessarily abbreviated conclusion to a show that went a decade and change without one.

Newcomers can enjoy the film on its own — it features a few flashbacks to catch viewers up to speed — but it’s best savored after a series-binge. This film can stand as a series finale and, just as strongly, as a springboard for more episodes.

There is a sense of finality in some ways, and in others, a deep desire to see the story explored further through a full season. As such, there are parts of the movie that feel hinted at but largely incomplete, even though there are satisfying micro-arcs and two major resolutions that feel like a proper farewell.

Thirteen years on, it remains as fresh and compelling as it ever was and it now has an ending worthy of its revered name.

A welcome if bittersweet, characteristically foul-mouthed reunion, one that more than justifies saddling up the entire gang for one more ride.

Deadwood ends too quickly, and not just because I was reluctant to leave its world behind once more. ... The show was exceptionally good at making characters feel like they lived full lives when they weren’t on screen, suggesting avenues it could have explored if there’d only been time.

Lord, it is “Deadwood”; not just a nostalgic exercise but a fair shorthand of what might have transpired in a fourth season. It can’t, in its abbreviated run, recreate the series’s full glory, but it does offer that glory a wistful toast. It’s not entirely necessary, but it’s wholly welcome. The dream stands before you, gutter-splashed and expletive-deleted lovely.

Milch's gift for raw frontier poetry, with Shakespearean soliloquies filtered through X-rated elegiac (and oh-so-satisfying) two-hour farewell. [27 May - 9 Jun 2019, p.12]

Deadwood: The Movie gives the show an end and neither diminishes nor burnishes the series' quality. And that, again, is enough.

Like sipping whiskey on a lazy Sunday afternoon, “Deadwood: The Movie” gradually but deliberately rewards fans who have waited 13 years. ... Although there are moments where the table setting lasts a little too long--the meat of the action via a murder doesn’t take place for 40 minutes--time matters less when you’re catching up with old friends. Better still is the increased pace and gunfire the film experiences after said death.

A sentimental close to this journey with excellent performances and — best of all — Milch's incomparable language.

After a long and promising wind-up, with characteristically gorgeous Milch dialogue, the movie reveals itself to be a shocking non-event that hews closely to the formula of a “very special episode” of a venerable series. There’s a wedding, there’s a funeral, and there’s a murder that’s telegraphed far advance, which effectively drains it of the impact of the show’s most upsetting and challenging acts of violence.