Watch King of Texas For Free

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Let's be realistic.

Admirable film.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A lean version of King Lear set in the wild west frontier. Local landowner John Lear gives his land to two of his daughters and banishes the third and quickly descends into madness and realises the folly of his decision.Two of the daughters engage in a blood lust where they plan to go to war with their Mexican neighbour for a land grab.Patrick Stewart seems to be enjoying this version of Lear, Roy Schneider brings dignity as friend and neighbour and one of the few sympathetic characters in this adaptation.The film is accessible but what lets it down is the Made for Television look. It looks cheap despite a starry cast and some of the violent scenes are toned down or abruptly cut.

I watched this movie on TV last night, I went in blind, all I knew was it was a re-imagining of Shakespeare's King Lear and it starred Patrick Stewart and Roy Scheider. That was enough for me, so I gave it a chance and was pleased I did.Roy Scheider is simply wonderful here, stealing the movie right from under the nose of Patrick Stewart, which is no easy feat (even with his dodgy accent) because Stewart is on top form here too. Your heart just goes out to him. You just want to help him. One complaint I did have was, he gets so far gone in such a short amount of time.A good effort and worth a watch at least once.

Although the concept is original, King of Texas is incredibly disappointing. It does remain fairly faithful to King Lear, however. (Naturally, in order to make a cohesive hour and a half film, specific characters and plot elements were discarded.) Patrick Stewart, best known for his portrayal of Captain Picard, delivers an unreal, ludicrous, performance. Whoever thought it would be clever to cast an Englishman as a hard core Texan was gravely mistaken.That said, the film was not completely terrible. In fact, certain parts were outright hilarious. The film is utterly overacted. The repeated comments about the Alamo and San Jacinto are completely unnecessary, ridiculous, and tasteless, and the film is completely outlandish. But, what makes the film awful makes it watchable. The utter absurdity of this film keeps the viewer in stitches.

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.