El Álamo

There will always be comparisons between this film and John Wayne's bloated 1960 epic of the same name. The 2004 version is a much better film for a number of reasons. The acting in Hancock's Alamo is of a personal nature; Billy Bob Thornton's David Crockett is a man haunted by his own fame, Jason Patric's Jim Bowie wrestles with demons unleashed by his wife's death, and Patrick Wilson seeks desperately to find a new life amid the chaos of revolution. Dennis Quiad as the hard-drinking, self-destructive Sam Houston may be the one weak spot in the cast. Even the defenders of the Alamo look as if they belong in that crumbling mission on the edge of San Antonio de Bexar. A friend of mine noted that "it looks like a made-for-TV movie," but he wasn't be especially critical of the film. What he meant, I believe, is that the normal scope and sweep of historical dramas was not present in this film. But the film did not suffer. Again, to pick on the Duke (and I'm a John Wayne fan), his Alamo certainly had vista galore; but the direction and story sat on its chest like a concrete block. Keep this in mind; the 1960 version is about a group of heroes valiantly defending their makeshift fort--the film seldom lets you forget that. Hancock's is about ordinary men in extra-ordinary circumstances where death is not some abstract thought. They are going to die and they are frightened.