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The Alamo (2004)
Touchstone Pictures/ Imagine Entertainment
Directed by: John Lee Hancock
Written by: Leslie Bohem & Stephen Gaghan
Cast: Dennis Quaid, Billy Bob Thornton, Jason Patric, Patric Wilson, Emilio Echevarria and Jordi Molla
DVD: Rs. 499
Walt Disney’s remake of the earlier Western classic “The Alamo” fails to rise to expected standards. Historically, the siege of church at Bexar, the Alamo, which was defended heroically for over 13 days and has become a rallying cry
for American patriotism, is a landmark event. However, a weak script, poor performances and a singular lack of effort on the part of the director make this version of the film a shade better than a B-grade movie.
None of the actors save for Billy Bob Thornton put in more than a scratch performance. Dennis Quaid portraying a drunken General Houston walks around as if he’s swallowed cod liver oil. Jason Patric playing the role of frontier hero James Bowie, the renowned knife expert has most of his role in bed as a TB stricken invalid.
Even his big death scene, where Bowie dies in bed with his guns blazing defending himself from the marauding Mexicans is a damp squib. Patric Wilson as the career-oriented Lt. Col William Travis who rallied his men into holding out till the very end fails to impress. Emilio Echevarria as the Mexican General referred admiringly as the Napolean of the West too comes out without much of an impact.
Probably the only character in the whole film that gets some development is Davy Crockett played adequately by Billy Bob Thornton.
Davy Crockett was another legend of the Wild West. In “The Alamo”, a little care is taken to debunk his overrated achievements while also saluting his skills. There is one part in the film when Crockett is narrating to the people at the dinner table an incident where the Red Indians were roasted alive and the grease from their bodies cooked the potatoes which were in the house.
The cowboys foraged for food after the fire and many of them ate the potatoes. Crockett however was put off the vegetable for life and hence always passed it around at the dining table. Quite a gruesome tale to be told in a movie rated PG-13 in the U.S.
There is also one scene in the film in which the famous marksman, Crockett aims and fires at General Antonio Lopez de Santana and misses as the wind carried the bullet off target. That one shot might have changed the siege of “The Alamo” and history could well have been written differently.
The film continues beyond the siege and finally General Houston gets a bit of spotlight. He is shown as a strategist that plots the trifurcation of the Mexican army and enticing Santa Ana into a Waterloo type situation where the Mexicans are routed in just eighteen minutes of fighting. But here too the depiction is weak and uninspiring.
While the catchphrase in American history resounds with “Remember The Alamo”, video watchers can forget “The Alamo.”
RAVI SHANKAR D.
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