The Alamo Review
by Jonathan Moya (jmoya AT cfl DOT rr DOT com)April 22nd, 2004
The Alamo
A movie review by Jonathan Moya
*** 1/2 (out of 5)
Davy Crockett: Billy Bob Thornton
Jim Bowie: Jason Patric
William Travis: Patrick Wilson
Santa Anna: Emilio Echevarria
Sam Houston: Dennis Quaid
Juan Seguin: Jordi Molla
Chief Bowl: Wes Studi
Sgt. William Ward: Leon Rippy
Touchstone Pictures presents a film directed by John Lee Hancock. Written by Leslie Bohem, Stephen Gaghan and John Lee Hancock. Running time: 137 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for sustained intense battle sequences).
Historical spectacle and historical reality are two different things. Historical spectacle is only seen in films and TV mini-series. It raises the colors and drops a heavy load of myth on the barest of facts.
The 1960 The Alamo directed by John Wayne was historical spectacle intent on monument building and hero making. Wayne as Davy Crockett was the defender of widows from scalawags and carpetbaggers, the statesman who could wax poetic on the emotional meaning of the word "republic", the warrior who could kill dozens of Mexican soldiers with a swing of his musket. This was Crockett as the ideal paladin for democratic sacrifice- hero with a capital H. It was Wayne bleeding red, white and Texas sky blue. In fact, Wayne's movie with its call for volunteers to cross the line and be counted on for a dangerous and certainly suicidal mission, the attacks and counter attacks, all the noble deaths of good men, was really an old patriotic war movie in disguise. Back then America loved it to the tune of big box office and seven academy award nominations, including one for best picture.
Historical reality dies gathering cobwebs in a dark part of a library. It is the dryly written historical treatise that declares that Davy Crockett never wore a coonskin cap, wrestled a bear, or killed any Indians. It says that the real Crockett would rather run than fight, that he was a paper hero- and all the rest was the self-invention of a politically ambitious man.
Somewhere between the two, is the Disney version. John Lee Hancock (The Rookie) rubs off the shine of myth from his characters to reveal the tarnish underneath. And, just as amazingly, Hancock lacquers the glow back on. The myth precedes the man until the man catches up.
The first view of Crockett is of an actor playing Crockett, the legend, in a drama based on Crockett's own tall-tale autobiography- essentially an image in a mirror rehearsing lines. Pulled into the spotlight, the real Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton) shifts and smiles uncomfortably in the glare of acknowledgment sent his way from his on-stage counterpart. The last image of Crockett the man, is of him surrounded by Mexican soldiers, summoning up the courage to make an outlandish boast that only the mythic Crockett would have uttered. The man has caught up with the myth.
Jim Bowie (Jason Patric), William Travis (Patrick Wilson) and Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid) also get a stripping followed by a relacquering of legend.
The Jim Bowie who shows ups up at the Alamo is a dying, alcoholic, consumptive, slave owner with an ego that lives off delusions of grandeur. Bowie assumes the command of the volunteers defending the Alamo mainly on his reputation as an Indian fighter and backwoods tactician. He spends half the movie slipping in and out of feverish delusions. In the end, he dies like a legend: with pistols in his hands, and guns blazing.
William Travis is shown as a man who sacrificed family for career. He is treated with disregard by the volunteers who see him as a dilettante with no real battle experience. Travis treats his men with compassion and decency. He is rashly brave. He is everything that Crockett is suppose to be.
Houston is a drunkard who resorts to prayer and bluff when the bottle isn't near by. His preening ego matches Bowie's stride for stride. He leaves the men of the Alamo to their fate because he needs a cause for his men to fight, train and die for. He also knew that the taste of victory would cause Santa Ana to fracture his forces in an overzealous pursuit that Houston could turn to his advantage at the right time.
The Alamo is an odd hybrid. It is an epic that wants to humble itself. It cuts its characters to flesh and blood and then applies a patch of gold. In its search for historical reality it gets bushwhacked by historical spectacle. This is a mess, but it is a weirdly, wonderful and curious one.
If history were to remember the Disney's the Alamo at all it would be as the film that (along with Home on the Range) brought an end to an empire- the Eisner one. Brought it to Heaven's Gate.
Copyright 2004 Jonathan Moya
http://www.jonathanmoya.com
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
