Ruby Ridge Revisited Weaver Show Accurate, Author Says

The complicated debacle of Ruby Ridge never lent itself to simple explanations or even to a clear-cut moral.

So it was with some trepidation that I received the advance copy of the CBS miniseries starring Randy Quaid as Randy Weaver and Laura Dern as his wife Vicki.

Would “Ruby Ridge: An American Tragedy” be an accurate, fact-based drama?

Or just another simplistic, melodramatic miniseries?

Viewers can come to their own conclusions on Sunday and next Tuesday. But to help answer those questions, I enlisted expert assistance: Spokane author Jess Walter.

Walter, a former SpokesmanReview reporter, wrote the book upon which the miniseries is based, “Every Knee Shall Bow.” He did not write the script (it was written by Lionel Chetwynd). But he did visit the set briefly, and he saw an advance tape of the finished product two weeks ago.

Walter’s verdict: “All in all, I think it’s pretty accurate.”

He admitted his opinion has wavered back and forth. The condensation of the story - the “shorthand” necessary to pack it into a two-part miniseries - made the show hard for him to watch at first. But he said he eventually concluded that, in the general thrust of the narrative, it stayed fairly faithful both to his book and to the facts.

“The thing I tried to do with the book is show that both sides made huge mistakes, and both sides were at fault,” said Walter. “I think that’s what the movie does, too.”

More casual viewers also may come to the same conclusion.

“Ruby Ridge: An American Tragedy” fits the strict definition of tragedy: a serious drama that ends disastrously for all the major players due to their own faults and mistakes.

In general, it tells the story soberly and fairly without taking sides. It remains compelling throughout and only occasionally descends into melodrama. In the end, viewers should come away with far more understanding of the events and the people involved.

Walter said the depictions of the two shooting incidents were especially realistic.

“It’s incredible the detail they went to,” said Walter. “They fired only the kinds of guns that were actually used, and they fired them in the sequence that was testified to.”

He also said the Weaver cabin was reconstructed down to the tiniest details, inside and out.

However, Inland Northwest viewers will notice plenty of details throughout the four hours that don’t jibe. Ruby Ridge itself looks far too arid, having been filmed in California’s Sierra Nevadas.

Walter noticed many other discrepancies in details, including some that were not so small.

“They changed the names of almost every character except the Weavers, for legal purposes,” he said. “There are also composite characters. Randy’s friend, the scary-looking bald guy, is a composite of, like, three people.”

He said many of these details won’t be noticed by viewers. “But for me, it’s like, ‘Oh, wait, Bo Gritz didn’t go into the cabin alone,”’ said Walter.

However, other discrepancies and omissions are more significant. For one thing, Walter said that the movie over-simplifies the reasons for the federal government’s original decision to close in on the cabin.

“The Weavers fought with all of the neighbors up there, and one of the things I wish they’d done was to make it clear that one of the reasons the feds felt they had to move in was that the problem with the neighbors was getting out of hand,” said Walter.

Instead, the mini-series makes it look like the government was reacting only to unfavorable publicity.

Also, the mini-series oversimplifies the government’s crucial decision to change the rules of engagement, a change that led to Vicki’s death. A lot of the discussion among the federal agents and officials comes off as wooden and contrived (although never sinister).

The portrayal of the main characters is far more successful. The strongest character, by far, is Vicki Weaver, played by Dern. Dern plays her as rigid, capable, bigoted and driven by strong faith. She is shown as being both the brains and the mouth of the couple, which according to Walter is at least half right.

“She was the brains, but she wasn’t the mouth,” said Walter. “Randy’s the one that did the talking. That’s the one area that I think they missed Vicki a bit.”

Randy Quaid, while much too large physically for the role, captured Weaver’s personality well. While he is clearly racist, ignorant and monumentally stubborn, he still manages to be an affable kind of guy.

“That’s what everyone says about Randy Weaver, ‘Yeah, he’s a white separatist, but he’s the nicest guy you ever met,”’ said Walter. “And you watch Randy Quaid, and you get that.”

Yet the mini-series does a creditable job of showing just exactly how racist, frightened and apocalypseobsessed that the Weavers had become. Fully half of Sunday’s episode deals with the Weavers’ life in Iowa, as they formed the theories and ideas that would lead them to live a secluded and frankly paranoid life on a North Idaho ridge.

Never does the show sugarcoat the Weavers’ beliefs. One of the more chilling scenes shows the Weaver children goose-stepping with swastika armbands in an attempt to intimidate the neighbors.

Director Roger Young is especially good at depicting the telling details of human interaction. Some scenes truly seem real: A confrontation between Weaver and an angry Native American; the tense and frightened atmosphere inside the cabin; Vicki’s parents collapsing in grief upon learning of her death.

Nobody can ever expect a Hollywood drama to be a precise depiction of the truth. But at least “Ruby Ridge: An American Tragedy” gives, in Walter’s words, “a general sense of how it happened.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color Photos

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: PREVIEW “Ruby Ridge: An American Tragedy,” airs May 19 and 21 at 9 p.m. on CBS.