The Alamo (2004)

How sad is this?

Best movie ever!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I just finished revisiting this film, and despite some lingering quarrels with Davy Crockett's cheesy death scene and Dennis Quaid's overheated portrayal of Sam Houston, this movie is a wonderfully emotional experience for me as a native Texan. The macho and occasionally corny 1960 version with John Wayne, Laurence Harvey and Richard Widmark is, in my opinion, far inferior to this film. John Lee Hancock did a brilliant job of portraying the haunting fears and nagging doubts that the doomed and selfless defenders surely felt when they faced the grim reality that they were surrounded and alone. He also tried to hew pretty closely to the historic facts while engaging in the inevitable amount of dramatic license required for a Hollywood feature. I cringed when I heard that Billy Bob Thornton was cast as Davy Crockett, but he was a very pleasant surprise. His twangy Southern accent was a perfect fit for the role. The other pleasant discovery was the Hispanic actor who played Juan Seguin. This well-known Texas history story passed into the realm of heroic legend long ago, and that makes it difficult to portray without disappointing lots of viewers and history buffs who have rigid expectations. I give full credit to native Texan Hancock for even taking it on. The final siege sequence is visually stunning, inspiring, overwhelming, and heartbreaking. And the coda at San Jacinto provides an emotional catharsis. Great music score as well. I wish Hancock had been better served by a couple of the main performances, but I remain a fan of this film.

In 1835, Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid) tries to rally people to Texas. William Barret Travis (Patrick Wilson) is given command of the Alamo. He faces Santa Anna with a smaller force even with the arrival of ex-congressman David Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton) and other volunteers. The movie continues after the Alamo and ends with Santa Anna's defeat at the Battle of San Jacinto.There is a mass of historical characters being gathered here. It would probably help to center the movie on one non-historical character. There are too many characters that need their 15 minutes. There are some good action scenes but the movie is too old fashion to be compelling as a modern film.

It's the third millennium and time for yet another revisionist movie. Most commentators seem to agree that this version of the Alamo siege is the most historically authentic of them all. Well, that's as may be. I'll have to take their word for it. I'm no student of American history.However; it is supposed to be entertainment. It's a movie. It's not billed as a documentary, nor even a docu-drama. If I really want historical accuracy I'll opt for a documentary. Or read scholastic history books (though even they are often inaccurate). When I watch a movie, I want entertainment. I'd like authenticity too - but not at the cost of viewing pleasure.This revisionist piece stars Billy Bob Thornton, along with wooden Mr Quaid. Adequate, but not exactly top drawer. It runs for some 2 hours 17 minutes, but - goodness me - it seems a great deal longer. I felt as though I had sat through the entire '13 days of glory'. I don't believe I have ever experienced a more gloomy, maudlin, self-indulgent piece of theatre. Incidental music assumed the substance of a dirge.There's also a fair share of soul-searching in John Wayne's original epic, but that's offset by spectacle, comedy, and irony in the grand old style of Hollywood sagas. Wayne's 'director's cut' ran for well over 3 hours, but was hacked down to about 2 and a half for its release.I love John Wayne's version. It may be preposterous, over-blown, and have little regard for truth. But it's a truly great movie - lavish, well-paced with progressively-building tension, and beautifully filmed. There's a script that intelligently meets every dramatic turn, with characters that are interesting and varied. And, of course, there's Big John himself - larger than life, full of panache and unique style, and a tremendously capable actor. He's balanced against Richard Widmark's surly, scathing Bowie. And the whole thing is bolted in place by a grand music score from Dimitri Tiomkin. As a movie; it's a classic tour-de-force on par with 'Zulu'.Give me Wayne's romantic mythologising any day. As they say in 'Liberty Vallance' - when the legend becomes truth, print the legend'. Purists are welcome to Billy Bob & Wooden Quaid's revisionism; for me it's just a relentless bore and a half. Despite its presumptions of historical fidelity; I didn't enjoy watching it. And what's the point of that?Not recommended.

The Alamo is directed by John Lee Hancock, who co-writes with Leslie Bohem and Stephen Gaghan. It stars Billy Bob Thornton, Jason Patric, Patrick Wilson, Dennis Quaid, Emilio Echevarria and Jordi Molla. Music is scored by Carter Burwell and Dean Semler is the cinematographer. Story is a recreation of The Battle of the Alamo that ran for 13 days during the Texas Revolution of 1836.On release it was met with disdain at worst, indifference at best, and now historically it stands as the second biggest box office failure behind Cutthroat Island. The pre release word of mouth wasn't good, and with "difficulties" of the financial and creative kind leading to Ron Howard leaving the directors chair-and Russell Crowe and Ethan Hawke bowing out of roles for two of the main characters, the film has never had an equal footing from which to try and sell itself as a worthy epic. Yet if there is a western styled war film most likely to improve with age, then Hancock's Alamo is it. You see, in time it's hoped that people can embrace that this take on the Alamo legend thrives on humanistic depth, telling it not as a "hooray" hero piece, but as it was, men doomed to die. And more pertinent, men who "knew" that in all probability, they were waiting for death to come. Now that's a hard sell. It's highly unlikely that we will ever get an Alamo film to please everyone, because ultimately the story is a sombre one, an unforgiving 13 days of sadness and bitter disappointments. No matter how it gets dressed up, with Duke Wayne bravado or otherwise, this was a futile engagement. There's no chest beating stirring of the emotions for the outcome of this battle, for example such as the British being allowed to withdraw gracefully from Rorke's Drift, this is bleak history. It was a bold approach by Hancock and his team, to strip away the glitter and paint it in fallible humanistic greys. Heroic pop culture characters like Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie are not defined by glory rah rah rah, but by being men dealing with the harsh realities of war as best they can. It's telling that when Crockett turns up at the Alamo, he is genuinely stunned to learn that the fighting is not over, his plans for a comfortable life in politics vanquished the moment he sets foot upon Alamo turf. Hancock should be roundly applauded for having the courage to craft such an honest depiction of the siege, and it's not as if we aren't warned about it, either in history as fact, or during the downbeat opening five minutes of film! So a film rich with in depth characterisations, then, but also a picture layered over with considerable technical skill. Hancock himself only really misfires by having a tacked on coda that shows Houston defeating Santa Anna and gaining his surrender. Who made the decision for this "uplift" I'm not sure, but it feels forced and doesn't have the impact intended. It would have been more telling and poignant to just have a title card flash up to tell us that Houston defeated Santa Ann in 18 minutes. We don't need to see a hurried recreation, the sombre mood needed to be kept up right to the last end credit rolled. For that's the true pain of The Battle of the Alamo. However, Hancock gets mostly great performances from his leading cast members (Thornton hugely impressive as Crockett) and shoots his battle scenes with brutal distinction. His overhead shots are superb, especially as the Mexican army attacks for the final and telling time. The 100s of soldiers swarming over The Alamo looks like ants converging on a desert oasis, the hopelessness of the defenders of Mission San Antonio de Valero is never more evident than it is here. Semler and Burwell aid the mood considerably. The former is inspired by much of the film being set at night, utilising fires and candle lights to enforce the shadows (of death) hanging around the characters, while the textured brown, red and yellow hues used for the landscape gives off a parched beauty that lends one to understand why these men fight for the land they occupy. Burwell scores it evocatively, where tender swirls of emotion sit neatly along side the more broad action strains of the brass variety. The lavish sets and costuming, including some tremendous hats, are all good on production value, to round out a tip top production. It cries out for revisits by those who dismissed it so casually back on its release. Certainly I myself found it helped considerably knowing now that this was not some rousing spectacle, but that it's a detailed character story leading up to a sad and inevitable conclusion. That coda and some under nourished support characters stop it from being a fully formed classic from the genre, but that aside, it's still one terrific and thoughtful piece of film making. 9/10