Hatfields and McCoys on History Channel

The History Channel’s Hatfield & McCoys is a story without heroes.  We start off in the mist of The US Civil War and watch two soldiers struggle to stay alive.  One of the two soldiers, a man named Hatfield, decides to desert from the Confederate Army and leaves his friend, a fellow named McCoy, behind.  Mr Hatfield heads home and proceeds to make a good deal of money from logging.  Mr McCoy gets to spent some time in a Union Prisoner of War camp.  When Mr McCoy comes home after the War, he is none to happy to see Mr Hatfield.  One thing, slowly, leads to another.

In a story that spans close to fifty years we hear a lot more about court cases and lawyers than we do about feuding.  Oh there are a few deaths here and there and there is even a battle of sorts.  I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t quite it.

I liked the look of Hatfields and McCoys, but the pacing could have used a bit of tweaking here and there.  Having to listen to these Beverly Hillbilly accents for six hours was a might trying on my nerves.

Co-stars Kevin Costner (as Devil Anse Hatfield) and Bill Paxton (as Randall McCoy) put in solid performances as two men who just can’t seem to get along.  One blunder on the casting front was having Sarah Parish play a Hatfield, while Jena Malone played a McCoy-these two women look enough alike to be mother and daughter.  The rest of the cast was perfect and the costumes and sets were damned good as well.

There were a couple of times in the story when it was clear one or two people could have put an end to the feud, but chose to go ahead and kill someone instead.  There were a coupe of people that I wanted to see dead from the first episode, and one of them finally did get killed.  Like I said, there were no good guys in Hatfields & McCoys, but it was an interesting story.

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