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Mystery! Coyote Waits | 
| Director: Jan Egleson
Actors: Adam Beach, Candice Castello, Jimmy Herman, Gary Kanin, Wes Studi
Studio: Pbs (Direct)
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.98
Buy New: $26.99
You Save: $2.99 (10%)
New (24) Used (7) from $19.30
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 10659
Format: Color, Dvd-video, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Vietnamese (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 107 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.6
MPN: 601
UPC: 841887000741
EAN: 0841887000741
ASIN: B00015YVPO
Theatrical Release Date: November 16, 2003
Release Date: January 6, 2004
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
The compelling Coyote Waits is based on one of the Leaphorn and Chee mystery novels by Tony Hillerman (all three have been adapted for television), concerning a partnership, of sorts, between an experienced Navajo detective, Joe Leaphorn (Wes Studi), and a young reservation cop, Jim Chee (Adam Beach). When the latter's colleague and friend ends up shot to death and left to burn in a fiery car, Chee takes time off to evaluate whether he should become a healer instead of a lawman. Either way, he can't proceed without getting to the bottom of the killing and proving or disproving his own original assumption that the murderer is a shaman he found drunk and in possession of a gun near the crime. Working the case from a different angle is Leaphorn, who finds a link between the shaman and a missing university professor on the trail of a major historical find. Beach and Studi are terrific, though the story doesn't bring them together, in the same space, very often. (The two characters do most of their communicating by phone.) Familiar faces in the supporting cast include Gary Farmer (Dead Man), Keith Carradine (Deadwood), and Graham Greene (Dances with Wolves). Sheila Tousey is outstanding in her recurring role as Emma Leaphorn, Joe's wise, no-nonsense wife. --Tom Keogh
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Some grating flaws, but the mystery itself works reasonably well. Be sure to read the Hillerman books September 28, 2008
C. O. DeRiemer (San Antonio, Texas, USA)
Years ago Robert Redford bought the screen rights to a bunch of Tony Hillerman mysteries. He's been the force behind one movie (The Dark Wind, 1991, with Lou Diamond Phillips and Fred Ward as Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn) and three television movies, all with Adam Beach as Chee and Wes Studi as Leaphorn (American Mystery! Special: Skinwalkers, 2002; Coyote Waits, 2003; and A Thief of Time, 2004). Redford has yet to get it right.
Coyote Waits is the best of the TV movies, but it suffers from the same conscientious flaws that mar the other three productions. It's best to remind ourselves just why Hillerman's mysteries are so good: They are complex yet believable; are set in what, for most Americans, is an exotic locale within a culture which is not well known; and the mysteries are superbly constructed and well written. Hillerman educates us along the way -- if we want to be educated -- about Navajo people, customs, history and the Navajo belief system. He makes clear the tension between modern needs and traditional values, but he does it matter-of-factly, with no preaching, and always within the context of the mystery he's telling.
Redford and his team almost perversely get it backward. More than any of the other flaws, it's the reverential treatment given to the Navajo and their land that sinks these movies into culturally-approved lessons. Instead of trusting the audience to take up what they will and learn from it or not, as Hillerman does, we have sweeping camera vistas of the land at dramatic moments; a generically sensitive "ethnic" score that tries to tell us what we should be appreciating in the Navajo belief system; and a need to cram in so many plot points from the books with messages about Navajo issues that the mysteries themselves become disorganized.
Coyote Waits eventually settles down to a better than average telling of Hillerman's story, which involves a ruthless search for old bones. A great deal of money and an enhanced reputation are the prizes. There's murder and avarice, rattlesnakes and Bolivian coins and the continuing conflict within Chee over his job as a cop and his gifts as a healer. Chee and the older Leaphorn wind up working together but on parallel aspects of the case. It makes for a neat way to keep the two different men prominent in the solution. The director and writer have managed with partial success to keep the focus on the story. Coyote Waits is far more coherent and with less of the reverential stuff that so marred, in my opinion, Skinwalkers and The Thief of Time.
You might want to give The Dark Wind a try. Phillips makes an interesting, if young, Chee. The movie, however, also keeps getting sidetracked into overly respectful appreciation of the Navajo way. The Navajo deserve better...which they get in the Hillerman books.
The only extra worth noting is a "making of" piece that features shots on location and brief interviews with the production crew, Hillerman, Beach and Studi. It serves up the same cloying flaws as the TV movie. People keep telling us how honored they are to be working on the program and how wonderful PBS is to be a partner in making the production possible. This is the same PBS that gave us the 10 p.m. "safe harbor" and that had the vapors over a real soldier in a real war (in Ken Burns' WWII documentary) saying a curse word. Please, folks, enough is enough.
I give this movie a better-than-average rating because, even with the movie's flaws, the team tried to do a better job. When they concentrated on the mystery, the movie works reasonably well.
Trouble on the rez for Chee and Leaphorn August 10, 2008
R. Kyle (USA)
"Coyote Waits" is the second American Mystery made for television movie based on the Tony Hillerman Navajo novels. In this story, Jim Chee (Adam Beach) is taking a hitchiker to work when he gets a call from fellow cop and friend, Delbert. He can't quite make out what his friend's saying, so he continues taking the young teenage girl to her job. Later, he finds Delbert shot to death in a burning car. He injures his hand trying to rescue his friend and blames himself for Delbert's death, reconsidering his decision to be a cop.
Joe Leaphorn (Studi) didn't want to be involved in this case at all. Ashi Pinto (Jimmy Herman) who is arrested for the murder is kin to his wife, Emma (Sheila Tousey). She's not going to let a kinsman be framed.
This puts Chee and Leaphorn at odds momentarily until they opt to work together. Wonderful reappearance of Graham Greene as the tribal Christian reverand and taxi-cab driver. Overall, this is a well done film and worth seeing.
See also the other two films based on this series:
A Thief of Time
American Mystery! Special: Skinwalkers
Rebecca Kyle, August 2008
I would watch it again January 26, 2008
MadLaurie (Madison, Wi United States)
As Hillerman fans we did enjoy the movie and would watch it a again. I did prefer Thief of Time as a story however, but that is Hillermans story not the movies issue. The actors were well chosen for their roles, and personally I just think Adam Beach is dang good looking and just like watching him lol. Anyway, I liked that Leaphorns wife was alive, less depressing than the book where he is always missing her. And in a book you can be in his head, where in a movie it works better to allow conversation with her instead to move his perspective along.
I had a heck of a time finding this to rent, finally found you can rent this movie and Thief of time on Netflicks! Skinwalkers is still more ellusive, and most expensive to purchase on here. I wonder why that is.
 Kinda Cheesy but it's tv November 6, 2007
Kris Mack (Knoxville, TN)
Made for tv movie from the popular books. Movie was a bit cheesy. Overacting is key. Too good of actors for such a bad script. Adam Beach and Wes Studi were poorly casted for such an amature movie. I couldn't possibly dumb down their talent for this case.
 Native mystery August 2, 2007
G. G. Ritz
A must see for anyone interested in the native america culture and enjoys a good mystery.
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