The Alamo ««½
PG-13, 137m. 2004
Cast & Credits: Dennis Quaid (Sam Houston), Billy Bob Thornton (Davy Crockett), Jason Patric (James Bowie), Patrick Wilson (William Travis), Emilio Echevarria (Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana). Screenplay by Leslie Bohem, Stephen Gaghan, and John Lee Hancock. Directed by John Lee Hancock.
Midway through The Alamo is a scene where Lt. Colonel William Travis (Patrick Wilson) is having a hard time figuring out how to tell his regiment of less than 200 soldiers that no reinforcements will be arriving to help them fight against General Santa Ana’s Mexican army in March 1836.
In walks Davy Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton) who recalls how the one lesson he learned while working as a Washington congressman was to never lie to the people you represent.
Not lying to the men would be the best way for Travis to tell them the hopeless situation they are in, Crockett says.
I don’t mind a little hard truth now and then. The problem with The Alamo is despite the fact the men will not go down without a fight, they are so resolved to their fate that not one of them it seems, has an ounce of hope.
I wasn’t at all surprised, given that The Alamo comes from the same studio (Disney’s Touchstone), who also gave us the Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay explosive collaboration, Pearl Harbor (2001), that this historical epic ends on a somewhat more positive note than perhaps any previous movies about the subject before it.
Disney’s studio execs would have likely objected if the filmmakers ended Pearl Harbor showing only the Japanese attack, despite it being the film’s biggest selling point. They would have preferred a more upbeat ending that would show the Americans taking the fight back to the enemy. The end result was the attack taking place midway through the film’s three hour running time with the climax showing American forces on a bombing run over Tokyo led by Alec Baldwin’s Colonel Doolittle.
In the case of The Alamo, whereas other movies have covered just the 13-day standoff itself, director and screenwriter John Lee Hancock (The Rookie-2002) along with screenwriters Leslie Bohem and Stephen Gaghan (Traffic-2000), don’t just give us a film about a group of men who stood their ground on what was intended to be a mission in San Antonio, Texas, but the aftermath as well.
The Doolittle we meet in The Alamo comes in the form of General Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid); a hard drinker but perhaps a brilliant military strategist who wages war against Santa Ana (Emilio Echevarria) and thus ultimately wins independence for the state of Texas in the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836.
What we get here is a straight-forward PG-13 narrative that seems taken directly from the history books, perhaps too straight-forward. This is the kind of movie history teachers will likely show to their classes in high school, if for no other reason that not only is it appropriate to show, it’s also likely the most accurate.
What’s missing from the film though is raw emotion. Movies are supposed to bring out some sort of emotion from the audience. The one thing I got out of watching James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) was I kept hoping the ship wouldn’t sink, or that the luxury liner would miss the iceberg. I was furious when I saw the 1970 war movie, Tora, Tora, Tora!, the definitive movie about the attack on Pearl Harbor, as I watched Japanese pilots bomb the hell out of our American fleet.
I have never seen John Wayne’s 1960 rendition of The Alamo, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Duke’s version evoked a sense of patriotism, even though Texans lost.
Such are the kinds of emotions missing from Hancock’s Alamo. An epic like this should want to give us moments where we want to yell at the screen and tell Houston to gather up whatever forces he has and help Travis and his men. We should be compelled to tell American soldiers sleeping to wake up as Mexican forces silently move in on the fortress in the dead of night.
What we get instead are heroes resigned to their fate like Jason Patric’s knife-wielding Jim Bowie. He not only mourns the death of his wife but spends most of the film’s time lying on what eventually becomes his own death bed, dying from typhoid sickness. When Travis tell his men how they will show the world what patriots are made of, the overall mood seems to be more on suicide than on anything else. It’s like being called in for a mandatory corporate meeting where the chief executive officer’s right hand man announces to all the employees in attendance they are being laid off within a few months. The employees already have an ominous idea ahead of time what the meeting is about.
The Alamo’s most memorable moments belong to Thornton’s Crockett, who exhibits a wide-eyed grin and such a gentle southern demeanor that it’s hard to believe this guy is really an expert marksman. He does things we least expect like taking a shot at Santa Ana out in the open or play along on his violin with the Mexican soldiers who, every night, bang out a moving Spanish tune about bringing death to traitors. Crockett is so legendary that even the Mexican soldiers talk amongst themselves about his past exploits.
Whether Davy Crockett was really the last man alive when the siege at the Alamo ended is also probably the stuff of legend. There is a scene after the infamous battle is over when the king of the wild frontier, facing a firing squad of Mexican soldiers, is asked to make one final wish.
Crockett asks General Santa Ana and his army of 2,000 men to surrender. I doubt of that really happened but it is unexpectedly upbeat moments like that which The Alamo lacks for more than two hours.
©4/7/04
PG-13, 137m. 2004
Cast & Credits: Dennis Quaid (Sam Houston), Billy Bob Thornton (Davy Crockett), Jason Patric (James Bowie), Patrick Wilson (William Travis), Emilio Echevarria (Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana). Screenplay by Leslie Bohem, Stephen Gaghan, and John Lee Hancock. Directed by John Lee Hancock.
In walks Davy Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton) who recalls how the one lesson he learned while working as a Washington congressman was to never lie to the people you represent.
Not lying to the men would be the best way for Travis to tell them the hopeless situation they are in, Crockett says.
I don’t mind a little hard truth now and then. The problem with The Alamo is despite the fact the men will not go down without a fight, they are so resolved to their fate that not one of them it seems, has an ounce of hope.
I wasn’t at all surprised, given that The Alamo comes from the same studio (Disney’s Touchstone), who also gave us the Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay explosive collaboration, Pearl Harbor (2001), that this historical epic ends on a somewhat more positive note than perhaps any previous movies about the subject before it.
Disney’s studio execs would have likely objected if the filmmakers ended Pearl Harbor showing only the Japanese attack, despite it being the film’s biggest selling point. They would have preferred a more upbeat ending that would show the Americans taking the fight back to the enemy. The end result was the attack taking place midway through the film’s three hour running time with the climax showing American forces on a bombing run over Tokyo led by Alec Baldwin’s Colonel Doolittle.
In the case of The Alamo, whereas other movies have covered just the 13-day standoff itself, director and screenwriter John Lee Hancock (The Rookie-2002) along with screenwriters Leslie Bohem and Stephen Gaghan (Traffic-2000), don’t just give us a film about a group of men who stood their ground on what was intended to be a mission in San Antonio, Texas, but the aftermath as well.
The Doolittle we meet in The Alamo comes in the form of General Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid); a hard drinker but perhaps a brilliant military strategist who wages war against Santa Ana (Emilio Echevarria) and thus ultimately wins independence for the state of Texas in the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836.
What we get here is a straight-forward PG-13 narrative that seems taken directly from the history books, perhaps too straight-forward. This is the kind of movie history teachers will likely show to their classes in high school, if for no other reason that not only is it appropriate to show, it’s also likely the most accurate.
What’s missing from the film though is raw emotion. Movies are supposed to bring out some sort of emotion from the audience. The one thing I got out of watching James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) was I kept hoping the ship wouldn’t sink, or that the luxury liner would miss the iceberg. I was furious when I saw the 1970 war movie, Tora, Tora, Tora!, the definitive movie about the attack on Pearl Harbor, as I watched Japanese pilots bomb the hell out of our American fleet.
I have never seen John Wayne’s 1960 rendition of The Alamo, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Duke’s version evoked a sense of patriotism, even though Texans lost.
Such are the kinds of emotions missing from Hancock’s Alamo. An epic like this should want to give us moments where we want to yell at the screen and tell Houston to gather up whatever forces he has and help Travis and his men. We should be compelled to tell American soldiers sleeping to wake up as Mexican forces silently move in on the fortress in the dead of night.
What we get instead are heroes resigned to their fate like Jason Patric’s knife-wielding Jim Bowie. He not only mourns the death of his wife but spends most of the film’s time lying on what eventually becomes his own death bed, dying from typhoid sickness. When Travis tell his men how they will show the world what patriots are made of, the overall mood seems to be more on suicide than on anything else. It’s like being called in for a mandatory corporate meeting where the chief executive officer’s right hand man announces to all the employees in attendance they are being laid off within a few months. The employees already have an ominous idea ahead of time what the meeting is about.
The Alamo’s most memorable moments belong to Thornton’s Crockett, who exhibits a wide-eyed grin and such a gentle southern demeanor that it’s hard to believe this guy is really an expert marksman. He does things we least expect like taking a shot at Santa Ana out in the open or play along on his violin with the Mexican soldiers who, every night, bang out a moving Spanish tune about bringing death to traitors. Crockett is so legendary that even the Mexican soldiers talk amongst themselves about his past exploits.
Whether Davy Crockett was really the last man alive when the siege at the Alamo ended is also probably the stuff of legend. There is a scene after the infamous battle is over when the king of the wild frontier, facing a firing squad of Mexican soldiers, is asked to make one final wish.
Crockett asks General Santa Ana and his army of 2,000 men to surrender. I doubt of that really happened but it is unexpectedly upbeat moments like that which The Alamo lacks for more than two hours.
©4/7/04
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