The story of the largest ranch in Montana and its violent patriarch, John Dutton, in a series that combines action, political intrigue, and family melodrama.
There are many reasons to recommend Yellowstone, but the first is its protagonist: Kevin Costner. The actor has been one of Hollywood's biggest movie stars since the 1980s, when he starred in titles like The Untouchables, No Way Out, and Field of Dreams. To see him again dressed in a cowboy hat riding through the open spaces of the West is to recall several of his most remembered titles, such as Silverado, Wyatt Earp, and, of course, Dances with Wolves, a film for which he took home two Oscar awards.
Of course, this is not the 19th century West, but the contemporary one. Yellowstone tells the story of the largest ranch in the state of Montana and one of the oldest in the United States. Its patriarch, John Dutton, played by Kevin Costner, is the sixth generation at the helm of that ranch and must face all the conflicts surrounding his land and wealth with a strong hand. It is not an idealized view of the field, but rather the opposite. Dutton is a rancher, a businessman, a cowboy, and a millionaire willing to do anything to keep what belongs to him.
His conflict fronts are several. On one side he has an Indian reservation, on the other a national park, other landowners who want to take over his power, corrupt politicians, and also oilmen. Although it's not the Wild West anymore, it's pretty brutal in contemporary terms. Dutton, who is a widower, also has to deal with his own children, his family is a problem and it is an ongoing dispute. There are many pending accounts and tensions are increasing. John Dutton is an American hero in some respects, but at the same time, he is the great villain of the series.
Kevin Costner, known for his good roles in movies, plays a very ambiguous character here, from whom some things can be rescued but who is obviously rejected for others. The viewer will have to change his gaze on him on more than one occasion and having chosen Costner is a great find.
Yellowstone is also American history. The lights and shadows of the United States. Entrepreneurial courage, the culture of effort, the love of the great outdoors. The pioneering and adventurous spirit of each of its inhabitants. But it also describes all the violence of that world away from the big cities. A gritty portrait of the world of contemporary cowboys and the spaces of power above the ground in which they work.
Yellowstone is a great series, it's a modern western and it's also an intense melodrama. Family history is one of the most important things you have to offer. Although it is dramatic, violent, and realistic in many aspects, in others, with its twists and exaggerations, it is reminiscent of another great series with these characteristics: Dallas, the television classic of the 80s. The differences are many, but if one pays attention, the spirit is the same. A whole tradition of family sagas and fights for power had their fashion in those years, today they are still there but in other formats, Yellowstone seeks a more traditional line, and thanks to the space in which it is narrated it is more timeless.
The description of these large open territories is not negative. The beauty of the American West is captivating. You can see in the characters and in the series a love for nature, for the western, for life on the ranches and cowboys. Also, that dream of freedom that only nature can give. But behind that is the other: politics, money, violence. The inheritance of one of the most powerful families in the United States.
Although there are several well-known actors, Yellowstone has an exclusive protagonist, the aforementioned Kevin Costner, a man closely linked to cowboy films. His love for the genre was born along with his career and although he did not only make western films, his revaluation is partly due to him. As a director he decided that his first film would be a western and he swept all the awards directing, starring in, and producing Dances with Wolves. He knew how to be a comical young cowboy in Silverado and none other than the most notorious sheriff in the far west Wyatt Earp. Also, The Messenger was a western, although set in the future and his last film as director, Pact of Justice, was a masterpiece of the genre. On television he had also tried his hand at westerns by starring in the miniseries Hatfields & McCoys, the bloody story of two families at war.
Yellowstone is ideal for those who love the genre, enjoy its iconography, and are also looking for a strong and adult story, with melodrama, violence, and power struggles between businessmen, ranchers, and a divided family. The exact point between the old stories and the contemporary ones. The good and the bad of life on a gigantic ranch in Montana. All accompanied by the charisma of the great Kevin Costner.