Entertainment :: Movies
The Alamo by David Foucher
EDGE PublisherFriday Apr 9, 2004 The legend of the Alamo is that perfect subject about which you’d expect more films to be made – the last major attempt was John Wayne’s in 1960 (a weak follow-up in 1983 went nowhere). It’s a heroic story about 189 patriots who held that tiny fort in San Antonio, TX against the Mexican Army and their leader Santa Anna, hell-bent on gaining controlling interest in the territory in 1836. Thirteen days of siege resulted in the deaths of nearly all those who stood against the Mexicans, and a rallying cry (you know the phrase) which drove Sam Houston’s Texan military to rout the Mexicans six weeks later at the Battle of San Jacinto.
It’s a fascinating chapter of Texan history, no doubt; although its relevance to the majority of Americans, not to mention the world at large, remains trapped in the universal face of courage presented by those facing sure death, along with the generalized heroism attributed to the lifestyles and challenges of the American West. For a film about the Alamo to avoid being esoteric, it needs to attach to those themes of human courage – and Disney’s does so… but barely.
The three enigmatic souls most known for having lost their lives at the Alamo are the brash Colonel William Travis (Patrick Wilson), the impassioned David Bowie (Jason Patric), and the celebrated David Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton). Patric delivers an adequate performance – there’s not much more than fuming happening in his character as portrayed – and it’s nice to see Wilson on the big screen after his brilliant turn in HBO’s “Angels in America” last year. But the film, as expected, belongs to the quirky performance of Thornton, who is solely responsible for bootstrapping the effort from the realm of the mediocre with about five memorable scenes. Almost as a footnote, Dennis Quaid turns in an odd performance as Sam Houston; the character is almost always in a rage when on-screen for no immediately compelling reason.
At its inception, “The Alamo” was Ron Howard’s picture; he took the Producer’s helm and brought on John Lee Hancock to co-write and co-direct the film halfway through pre-production. It would be interesting to see the film Howard never made and compare the two; Hancock had the 2002 Quaid vehicle “The Rookie” as his calling card to tackle an epic film, but I’m quite sure “The Alamo” will not catapult him to the A-List. There’s a generalized confusion evident in the film from Hancock’s work; we’re not entirely sure to what the film pays tribute, apart from the horror of the massacre itself. And the three actors inside the fort are strongest as individuals, less so as a team whose interpersonal conflicts, desires and triumphs should have echoed the larger framework of the battle. The Mexicans scored, after all, a pyrrhic victory in San Antonio; something more should have survived of the Texans’ sacrifice, and something more should survive this film when the lights come back on and the audience shuffles home.
But it’s also difficult to ignore the fact that “The Alamo” works as a film on its own. It’s well-paced, earnestly performed and nicely restrained – the great Western meets a Civil War drama, all pathos and tumbleweeds at once. I appreciated Hancock’s determination in that regard, and his delivery – the film is entertaining for sure. I’m certain that will not be sufficient for Texans who never forgot the Alamo. And the rest of us will have to make our own determination.
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