curtis martin Robert Redfords PBS "Mystery" adaptations of Tony Hillerman's Navajo police novels completely ruins the two main characters, Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn. Chee in the books was a regular guy who also happened to be deeply involved in his people's culture, to the point of learning to be a "singer" or healer. In the films he is already an expert on all things spiritual, the mystical Indian stereotype who has no real personality, no faults to speak of, no doubts about anything, no insecurities. In Hillerman's books, Joe Leaphorn was a "legendary detective" who was also a highly educated scholar, at least as if not much more knowledgeable about Navajo and Native American culture and religion than Chee. But though Leaphorn knew about it all, he didn't live it in the mystical sense, not being particularly religious himself. Leaphorn's god was logic and a belief that everything that happens, happens for a reason. In these crappy movies, poor Wes Studi's version of Leaphorn has been made into a man who knows virtually nothing about his own culture, doomed to be forever "educated" by the know it all mystic man Chee. This makes Chee ever superior, which is very ironic, because in the books, Chee always feels vastly inferior to Leaphorn because of his much greater police knowledge, education, and experience. And it was this part of the relationship that made their two characters so interesting when thrown together.Producer Robert Redford took two fairly complex characters (by paperback mystery novel standards) and mooshed 'em down into nothing but two more Indian stereotypes.Redford's first effort to adapt Hillerman (which his company now tries to pretend never existed) was Errol Morris's "The Dark Wind." While that flick was no masterpiece, it was head and feet above these slow, dumbed down TV movies.

PUNISHER_ I just saw this movie, and I would like to say that this was a great mystery. The setting is in a Navajo county, Adam Beach plays a cop and a medicine man that makes sure things in town are going the way they are supposed to, and Wes Studi plays a good detective. When a murder of a medicine man takes place, Beach and Studi join together to solve the crime. The movie is great because it shows you how the Native American life is. The roles that Beach and Studi play, are roles of heros that would do anything in order to set things right. I cannot wait to see Coyote Waits. This movie was very good and I would highly recommend people that like mystery films, to see this movie.

krun99 This beautifully cast motion picture really brought to life Tony Hillerman's Skinwalkers. It is impossible to exact a movie from a novel and I am glad to see that James Redford did not even try. What he did was give life to Chee and Leaphorn who I know so well in my mind. He also brought life to a place of beauty and pain that few people even know about. It think this movie was very well acted by Wes Studi, Adam Beach, and the rest of the supporting cast. I would love to see more of Tony Hillerman's wonderful southwest brought to the screen. This movie as well as his novels give us an insight into a culture that is fascinating and mystical. He also has a way of bringing a mystery together from many different angles that came across beautifully on screen.

tazcat39 Having read several of Tony Hillerman's Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee mysteries, I was excited to learn that one would be the first American series of PBS' Mystery.Wes Studi portrayed the "uptight" Leaphorn very well. I first saw him as the scoundrel Magua in Last of the Mohicans, a part well suited to him. Adam Beach was also great as the more sensitive and perhaps a little naive Jim Chee. Although I guessed who the villain was in this story, it was close to the end when Leaphorn and Chee also discovered the truth.I grew up seeing Native Americans or Indians always the enemy. It is good to see a story of Indians and their cultural ways in an everyday setting.