Back Rowe Reviews
Real Time Movie Reviews from the Back Row of a Theater

The Alamo (PG-13)

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Directed by: John Lee Hancock
Starring: Dennis Quaid
April 2004

“Memorable Remake of Historic Tale”


Billy Bob Thornton as Davy Crockett? Dennis Quaid as Sam Houston?? No major female actor anywhere in the cast??? On the face of it, this modern take on the centuries-old massacre seems a bit underpowered and a tad ill timed. Amid the deluge of epic pictures this last fall (The Last Samurai, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), The Alamo was pushed back to this spring. Unfortunately for The Alamo, fervor for epics has sublimated a great deal since December, but will undoubtedly be rekindled with the upcoming Troy and King Arthur. It’s too bad that The Alamo was released during the lull period, because it is a solid effort.

There’s very little departure from the actual, historical events, which is a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that
The Alamo isn’t “cutesy” and doesn’t succumb to radically re-writing history like so many other modern “period” pieces. The curse is that the movie feels like a glorified History Channel special; a sterile, stagnant time capsule, not a living, breathing entity. The movie stays on the fringes of the action and never really accesses the visceral emotions of the tragedy. What made blockbusters like Titanic and Pearl Harbor successful is that they introduced original characters into the action and we, as the audience, experienced the historical event through the eyes of these fictitious characters. This made us feel as if we were right there with them, becoming a part of history in a very exciting and frightening way. This storytelling style has a bigger emotional payoff if it’s executed properly, but also runs the risk of being rejected by the public and lambasted by critics.

For better or worse,
The Alamo remained faithful to the original cast of characters, without introducing any new ones. The advantage to this approach is name recognition: we’re all familiar with names like Davy Crockett, James Bowie (Jason Patrick) and Gen. Santa Anna (Emilio Echevarria). The disadvantage is that there’s very little character development that can be presented outside of what we’ve already learned in history books. In the movie we see Bowie proudly display his patented knife and hear Crockett play a fiddle, and that’s nearly the extent of all character development in the picture. The only real character growth involves a lesser-known character, Lt. Col. William Travis (Patrick Wilson), who comes of age after being christened the new fort commander.

All in all,
The Alamo is entertaining and is a great reminder of the sacrifices that were made so that we can enjoy freedom today…especially in the Lone Star state. However, it remains to be seen if audiences and critics will remember The Alamo.

Rating: 3