April 9, 2004 | Maybe moviegoers had
it better in the 1940s, way back before Access Hollywood and Entertainment
Weekly covered
every hiccup of on-the-set, behind-the-scenes turmoil. During that more
innocent, less media-savvy age, audiences were free to enjoy the likes
of Casablanca , The Big Sleep and Lost Horizon without
being distracted by reports of cast changes, cost over-runs, delayed
premieres and editing-room alterations.
But that was then, this is now: The Alamo finally
arrives in theaters this weekend -- four months after its originally
announced opening date – amid extensive gossip about its pre- and post-production
travails.
The good news is, this epic drama about the defining event of Texas
history is better than the negative buzz might indicate. The bad news
is, it's not nearly good enough.
From the cluttered, confusing montage of its opening scenes to the oddly
unsatisfying anticlimax of its finale, The Alamo evidences
all the tell-tale signs of a long movie that has been whittled down from
a much longer one. Exposition comes in hastily shouted sound bites. Lengthy
episodes are interspersed with confusingly abrupt transitions. Characters
appear without introduction, then disappear for extended, inexplicable
periods.
On the other hand, the blood-and-thunder
battle scenes are vividly rendered and viscerally exciting, while the
Mexican and Texian combatants – including
a ruthless but not-entirely-unsympathetic Gen. Antonio López de
Santa Anna ( Emilio Echevarria) -- are depicted in a surprisingly even-handed,
warts-and-all manner.
Working from a script he co-wrote with Leslie Bohem and Stephen Gaghan
(with uncredited input from John Sayles), Texas native John Lee Hancock
takes a respectfully revisionist approach to the same events and characters
John Wayne shamelessly romanticized in his own 1960 Alamo epic.
To his credit, Hancock – who also directed The Rookie – strives
for a dramatically sound balance of fact and fancy, men and myth. In
this, however, he is most successful only when he turns his camera on
Billy Bob Thornton, who more or less dominates the movie with his cunning
portrayal of a ruefully self-aware Davy Crockett.
As the wily frontiersman turned living legend,
Thornton suggests a 19 th -century version of an aging action-movie
star, a celebrity who enjoys the adulation of his fans even while he
wearily shoulders the burden of their unrealistic expectations. His
Davy Crockett – who would really, really rather
be addressed as David – winds up pushing himself to greatness during
the defense of the Alamo against Mexican forces largely because he knows
he can't disappoint those who expect greatness of him. A nice touch:
At the moment of his death, his appears greatly bemused by the realization
that the way he dies will ensure his immortality.
Jason Patric plays knife-fighter Jim Bowie
as a larger-than-life hero who's similarly ambivalent about his fame.
Unfortunately, Patric's performance – most
of it delivered as Bowie lies in bed, felled by consumption -- is little
more than a tediously sustained scowl. Patrick Wilson is slightly more
animated as William Travis, the untested commander who demonstrates grace
under pressure while leading the doomed Texians at the Alamo. Unfortunately,
when the big moment arrives and Travis must rally the troops, Wilson
lacks the star quality required to make the scene truly memorable.
Houston-born Dennis Quaid gets top billing as Sam Houston, whose decisive
routing of Santa Anna's forces at the Battle of San Jacinto allows the
filmmakers to end The Alamo on a relatively upbeat note. It's
painfully obvious that a lot of his role got left on the cutting-room
floor. And that's a pity, because Quaid's performance as a tarnished
hero who transcends his failings through sheer force of will is so intriguing,
you can't help wishing you could see a lot more of it. Of course, you
could say the same thing about The Alamo itself.