The Alamo

Epic western upon the state of Texas's fight for independence in 1836 . The usual band of diverse personalities including Davy Crockett (Billy Bob Thorton) , Jim Bowie (Jason Patrick) , Colonel Travis (Patrick Wilson) defend a small fort against very big Mexican raiding party commanded by general Santa Anna (Emilio Echevarria) . It's until the spectacular crushing spotlight of total slaughter and revenge executed by Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid) when the movie comes alive at all . Previously meeting final tragedy , they contend with each other and finally understand the meaning of life and come to respect each other . It was a troubled issue but with millions dollars budget weighing heavy in the conscience of the producer Ron Howard and director John Hancock led to a real flop and didn't had the wished box office . Big budget production features an impeccable musical score by Carter Burwell and Billy Bob plays the violin , besides it has an incredible number of extras for the Mexican army .

The film is correctly based on historic events . The stalwart but tragic defense has become one of American history's most often repeated legends,although historical research has revealed a few facts that go unmentioned.For instance,Sam Houston,commander in chief of the Texas forces,never felt that the crumbling mission could stand up to a siege,and ordered frontiersman Jim Bowie to destroy.He didn't ,however,and rescinded the order and sent attorney turned colonel William B.Travis to defend it.The force that remained in the mission the date the siege began,is estimated at between 182 .Of these less than 20 were actually Texans,the rest including Bowie and another frontier legend,Davy Crookett were volunteers.Early all of them believed that reinforcements were only a short time away.Santa Anna Launched a pre-dawn attack.To the strains of ¨deguello¨a battle march indicating that no quarter would be given,or no prisoners taken,some 1800 Mexicans troops stormed the fort.They were thrown back by the cannon and rifles of the defenders,they rushed again,and were repulsed a second time.Eventually Santa Anna sent another wave of troops who broke the outer defenses and forced the Texans to retreat,fighting hand to hand.When the fighting was over,there were no survivors among the defenders.The myth that the garrison fought to the last man ,however isn't quite accurate,since the evidence indicates that Davy Crockett and several others were captured and possibly tortured,then executed.That they died bravely has never been disputed.William Travis who at least according to legend,invited all who would stay and die with him to cross the line in the dirt,fell near a cannon at the north wall.And Jim Bowie,already deathly ill from a sickness that had recently claimed wife and children,fought from his sickbed near the main gate.Like many others among the defenders Bowie was armed with the formidable hunting knife named for him.The legendary defense served as a rallying point for the beleaguered Texas.Although Santa Anna ,who lost at least 600 of some 3000 troops against a force of less than 200,referred as a small affair,the valor of the defenders gave the surviving Texan troops something to remember and thus they did,six weeks later at San Jacinto,but a new battle cry had been added to the annals of American history:¨Remember the Alamo¨

Making a film about the Alamo in 2004 was a risky business. On the one hand, you have the traditional story which doesn't always stand up to close historical scrutiny. One the other, you have revisionist history which often tosses out the inconvenient, replacing it with material which is just as suspect, but politically correct.

This film takes the middle road which, like all compromises, is guaranteed to leave both sides unsatisfied. I believe this simple fact underlies many of the poor reviews this film received.

It is to the film's credit that it presents the most historically credible version of the events leading up to the birth of the Republic of Texas. To be sure, there are still points which may be quibbled over. But without the benefit of a time machine, it's difficult to come up with a more reliable exposition of the known facts.

And that is, to many critics, another of the film's weaknesses. The average movie goer wants to be entertained and reacts negatively to any obvious attempt to educate him/her in the process. That's a sad commentary on our society, but that's the way it is. This movie could have been more entertaining, but then it wouldn't have been as educational. I appreciate accuracy and educational value in historical films, so I really liked it.

The bottom line is this... If you're looking for a familiar retelling of the Alamo story which sticks to the established mythology, this isn't for you. If you're looking for a complete retelling which turns the entire story on its ear, this isn't for you. If you're looking for mindless entertainment, this isn't for you. If you're looking for a real story of real people who changed the face of America, this is a really good film.

I've rarely been as surprised by the reviews I've read here - or disagreed with them more - than I was for this film. Most of the ones here are negative and call this film boring, poorly done and lacking in character development.

I am very easily bored. At just over 2 hours, I found this film captivating. Poorly done? John Lee Hancock's film is one of the most effectively produced I can remember. Not one moment of this film was shot on a sound stage. They took 50 acres in Texas and actually rebuilt the entire city of San Antonio de Behar and the Alamo and shot the entire movie in situ.

But the most amazing aspect of these reviews is the repeated accusation of lack of character development. I came away from this film understanding for the first time who William Barrett Travis, David Crockett, James Bowie and Sam Houston really were. The human underneath the legend as it were. David Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton) has a great line in this movie: "If it were just me, simple David from Tennessee, I might go over that wall one night and take my chances. But this Davy Crockett feller - people are watching him". Lack of character development? I don't think so.

The piece de resistance, though, and the one that made me take fingers to keys and write this review (something I almost never do) was the review which claims there was no tribute given to Tejano assistance in the Texas Revolution. Did this person see the same film I did? Or did he/she take a bathroom break every time Juan Seguin's character was on screen? The PRIMARY thing I learned from this historically accurate-as-possible-when-making-a-movie film was ... ta da .... the involvement of the Tejanos! I had never really considered before that there was a brother-against-brother aspect to the Alamo, but it was very implicit in this film.

Ignore the negative reviews, particularly if you are a history buff, and see this film.

Apart from colorful and dramatic sequences that play lavishly over the screen, imparting a generally correct and truthful sense of place as well as history, this is a movie of words. Too many in some places and too few in others.

This is not the cartoonish Alamo of Fess Parker or John Wayne. Thankfully so. But neither is it a summary of all that was actually good or bad about the seminal event that created "Texas" as a concept bigger than life and arguably still representative of the changing frontier in North America.

To put it briefly, I liked what was here but came away dismayed by what was not here. Any movie that presumes to portray an actual and well-documented historical event must do more than touch on this or that fragment of fact. The production staff is obliged to accept what is presented to them by the writers, the actors, and the director -- leaving on the cutting room floor only irrelevant scraps. I have the feeling that procedure was not followed here. Too many threads holding the story together are missing.

For example, the single most important motive lying at the heart of the Texas rebellion is inadequately explained. Was it merely greed and personal ambition on both sides that created the conflict? Or racial and ethnic disputes? Or Manifest Destiny? There is absolutely no clear picture to be gained from this movie that sets in perspective what the fuss was all about. Yet we have glorious and stirring speeches (or at least aphorisms) emanating from all parties, delineating character rather well but existing only in an isolated truth here or a compelling argument there.

Somewhere on that cutting room floor, I suspect, are scenes that focus less on individual character and more on the fact that "Texians" were a unique combination of English-speaking and Spanish-speaking citizens of the newly-created nation of Mexico, a remote outpost or colony of the central government that grew too large for that government to handle. In that sense, it was just like any other historical event reflecting a desire on the part of a distinct group of persons living at the edge of an empire to achieve self-government.

When seen thus, the merging of cultural differences that characterize Texas even today presents a unified entity of mutual interest. What holds this story together, as very ably shown in bits and pieces of the film, is how important it is to recognize what humanity holds in common in spite of apparent differences.

Little wonder that Billy Bob Thornton as Davy Crockett steals the show. (Unlike Dennis Quaid as a one-dimensional caricature of my collateral ancestor Sam Houston.) This movie could have been another thirty minutes longer and mutually subtitled to get at the heart of its message. No Oscars for the current cut.

John Lee Hancock's THE ALAMO is often sluggish, mired in his effort to provide 'detail' in an attempt at honesty, and it is nearly 90 minutes before action fans get their money's worth (and they do; the Alamo's siege and 'last stand' are mesmerizing), but all that being said, the film is a remarkable re-evaluation of one of America's best-known legends.

While each of the story's principals (David Crockett, James Bowie, William Barret Travis, Sam Houston, and Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana) are de-mythologized, it is Crockett (brilliantly conceived by Billy Bob Thornton) who captures and holds your attention. Neither the folksy backwoodsman (as portrayed previously by Fess Parker and Arthur Hunnicutt), nor the hero answering an oppressed people's call for help (John Wayne's 'take' on Crockett), Thornton's Crockett is a well-dressed country 'sophisticate', who plays the violin and the political game in Washington very well. As the film opens, he attends a Washington production of "The Lion of the West", based on his fictional exploits, with a leading man dressed in what we today consider the 'Official Crockett Uniform' of buckskins and a coonskin cap. The character on stage, and the legends surrounding him which would ultimately incorporate the Alamo as it's final act, is the 'DAVY Crockett' we all know, but the 'real' David Crockett, according to Hancock, is an opportunist who sees political rebirth in Texas, and arrives hoping the battle is already over. Thornton is masterful, showing Crockett's ambition, his fear of having to 'live up' to the legends surrounding him, and his gradual emergence into a true hero, who would defy Santa Ana with his last breath.

The other leads aren't given as much screen time for character development, with the exception of Dennis Quaid's Sam Houston, a heavy-drinking pragmatist with a political agenda and ambitions of his own. Patrick Wilson's Travis is a failure as a father and husband, hoping to rebuild his life and reputation in Texas; Jason Patric's Bowie is a glowering, unsavory adventurer/businessman, involved in slave trafficking, and terminally ill during the siege (Hooker does, however, bow to legend, allowing the dying Bowie a chance to fire his pistols at the Mexicans before being overwhelmed). Emilio Echevarría, the first Mexican to ever play Santa Ana in an American film, has gotten bad press for his portrayal of the leader as a loud-mouthed, insensitive, lecherous egotist, but from all accounts, that WAS what the real Santa Ana was like.

While the slow pacing of most of the film is a problem, the film's final half hour appears rushed, as the Alamo's fall jumps quickly into Sam Houston's victory over Santa Ana, at San Jacinto (an event that occurred after a momentous six weeks of defeat and tragedy barely touched upon by Hancock). While it is understandable that the film makers wanted an 'upbeat' ending, it comes across as jarring, nonetheless.

If you like your heroes and history 'bigger than life', the 2004 ALAMO will disappoint, and you should stick to John Wayne's version. If, however, you want a new perspective, and are willing to dispense with the preconceptions of the past, this film has a LOT to offer!