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Alamo brings history
to life
By Will Farnham
and Cheryl Heitzman
Collegian Reviewers
Farnham: This week is Hollywood's latest war
movie, The Alamo. Don't let the title fool you; the battle doesn't
actually take up much of the film.
Heitzman: OK, so The Alamo was not that bad.
Sure, it took one and a half hours to get to the battle, and
another 20 minutes to close out the movie, but Billy Bob Thornton
portrayed Davy Crockett well enough to make me forget the film's
flaws.
First of all, yes, the men at the Alamo waited
for 13 days before the massacre came. But an hour and a half
of waiting? Not so much a good idea.
So maybe the director would use this time
to fully develop the characters. Wrong again. The audience only
gets sub-par character development. What happened to Col. Jim
Bowie's (Jason Patric) wife? Why is she not around? Did her
sister live? What happened to Lt. Col. William Travis' (Patrick
Wilson) son? And what happens to Travis' slave? Unless members
of the audience are history buffs (and even that might not be
enough), the fates of all the characters are a mystery. Except
for Santa Anna (Emilio Echevarria). Plus, its not until the
hour and a half mark that we find out why these men are fighting
for Texas.
Farnham: The problems arising from character
development, or lack thereof, was that the writers only had
two goals in mind: to show the audience that those fighting
were not necessarily the legendary figures we tend to make them,
and to exhibit the soldiers' personal histories and loves. The
hope wasn't so much to bring character to the men as to show
that they weren't just pawns in a game between Travis and Santa
Anna.
Heitzman: Secondly, Wilson's portrayal of
Travis is completely unbelievable. The militiamen do not respect
the haughty man in his spotless uniform. But all of a sudden,
they do, because he approaches a cannonball that hasn't exploded
and carries it to the wall himself.
Farnham: I found Wilson's Travis as believable
as any of the other characters. It's true that he wasn't a changed
man when he went and picked up the cannonball. The purpose of
the scene was to demonstrate that Travis was learning that the
rules were different, and he couldn't command the men at the
Alamo the same way he might have back East. Of particular import
was Jim Bowie's reaction, for as he went, so went the men.
Heitzman: Travis aside, a few anti-Manifest
Destiny comments came out of Santa Anna's mouth that suspiciously
sounded more like typical left-wing Hollywood propaganda than
what Santa Anna would have really said.
Farnham: My problem with Santa Anna wasn't
so much the propaganda, though I did notice it, but that he
wasn't just another enemy for the Texan army, he was an archetypal
villain. Granted, I am rather unfamiliar with Santa Anna's history,
but I find it quite hard to believe he was even half as evil
as the film portrayed him.
Heitzman: As for the film's merits, Thornton's
performance was amazing. Crockett accompanied the Mexican army's
band on his fiddle, inspiring the Mexican army to lay off the
cannons for a night. In a scene reminiscent of the story depicting
the German and Allied troops calling it quits for Christmas
Eve, Crockett lures both armies into a sense of calm and clarity,
which all comes crashing down the next day. The scene sticks
out the most after the movie is over, almost making a pacifist
out of me. Almost.
Farnham: I think "amazing" is too
strong a word for Thornton's work. Sure, he was good, but I
didn't find him to be much better than Dennis Quaid's Sam Houston.
While Thornton's performance is nothing to be ashamed of-and
redeems him in my mind, since the last I saw him was in Monster's
Ball, a film I despise-it will hardly stand out among the rest
of his roles.
Heitzman: The battle scenes were cool, though
Crockett's death was needlessly dramatic, and I suspect, historically
inaccurate. The last 20 minutes of the movie, Santa Anna's Waterloo,
could have been a nice two-minute montage ending with Houston
screaming, "Remember the Alamo!" But no. More carnage,
and more drunken Houston jumping around on a horse.
Farnham: I, too, was put off by the ending.
While it at least made it worthwhile to have put up with endless
earlier scenes of Houston staring at nothing or ranting to the
Texan constitutional committee, I found it disappointing that
the film's producers found it necessary to end the film "happily."
I think perhaps it could have been much more powerful and patriotic-which
is doubtless one of the goals-to have ended it with the defeat
at the Alamo.
Heitzman: Overall, the movie really was not
that bad. The story of the Alamo is entertaining in itself,
and it was interesting to see the history unfold. The battle
scenes were amazing, and the script really made the men look
like the heroes they were, but kept them human at the same time.
I enjoyed Billy Bob (as I always do) and Quaid is always a treat.
The slow beginning is worth the battle, and I give it two and
three quarter stars. Maybe three. Yeah, three.
Farnham: Three Newcastles should do the trick.
It was no Gettysburg, but it certainly could have been much
worse.
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