Approved for 12+
The Long Ride Home
Passion, revenge and murder mark this romantic mystery set in the 1860's Old West. In post-Civil War Missouri, veteran Lucas Moat (Ernest Borgnine), the tough, crusty patriarch of the Moat family, vows vengeance on his brother's murderer - the victim to the brutal Cole, and Lucas now sets out in hot pursuit.
In another part of the state, family turmoil gives way to tranquility as local sheriff Hank Bowman (Eric Roberts) pursues a romance with widow Laura Fowler (Vaughn Taylor), who lives with her eight-year-old son Daniel (Alec Medlock). Their peace is broken when Daniel and his mother discover a wounded man riding towards their farmhouse. Daniel mistakingly identifies the man as legendary gunfighter Jack Cole, but he is really Jack Fowler (Randy Travis), Laura's presumed-dead husband and Daniel's father. While Laura nurses him back to health, Jack reveals that he had been forced to disappear after killing one of the drunken Moat brothers in self-defense. In an effort to protect Laura, Jack had led Lucas and his family on an exhausting chase as far away from Missouri as possible. Now, however, he has brought danger right to her doorstep.
Hot on Jack's heels, a deputy named Able Hart (Paul Tinder) arrives at Laura's farmhouse looking for the mysterious Jack Cole. Laura senses Hart is not whom he claims to be and confronts him. After brutalizing Laura, Hart kidnaps Daniel. Jack rescues Laura and sets out to find his son. At the same time, Hank discovers that "Deputy Hart" is really murderous gunfighter Jack Cole. Laura and Jack devise a plan to capture Hart and find Daniel, but the Moats - realizing Hart is the man they have been hunting - rescue the boy from Hart's clutches in the nick of time. A battle ensues as everyone converges on the farmhouse. Shots ring out, and when the smoke clears, Hart is dead, and Laura chooses to stay with her real husband, Jack. But is this the end of their story? Or merely the beginning?
