This much-ballyhooed gay cowboy melodrama is an inert disappointment.

Rating: 3/10 (25 December 2005)

I saw "Brokeback Mountain" & I was 100% disappointed! A complete let down. Not the Best Film of 2005, nor the Worst Film of 2005, just the most over-hyped let-down of a film of 2005! Well, if you miss Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain," that's okay  you're not missing much. This much-ballyhooed gay cowboy melodrama is an inert disappointment.
All this was, and will ever be is a "Gay-Film" made with high end production values, with a B-Cast who couldn't act there way out of a paper bag, with a director who seems he wanted to re-build his reputation after the dud "The Hulk", and a studio willing to back his one-sided vision.
Adapted from a short story by E. Annie Proulx (whose "The Shipping News" also made for a hugely disappointing movie), Lee's film stretches the story over the course of decades to beyond its breaking point.
"Brokeback Mountain" was the type of film made for the straight, art-house crowd, who only could probably handle a gay male (or anything gay for that matter as long as they didn't have to see it for real), or gay sex on the big screen, or in such small ways as "Will & Grace" that if it was actually placed in front of them in real life, these same so called open-mined people would freak out.
Hailed as a landmark of mainstream tolerance (and to the "mainstream"'s shame, that's exactly what it is), "Brokeback Mountain" feels more like an antiseptic gimmick that attempts to hijack the conventions of a traditionally-masculinized genre to further demonstrate, as if further demonstration were needed, that two men in love is as natural, tempestuous, and ineffable as heterosexuality. The obstacles thrown their way are hazarded at but ultimately poorly-drawn--in fact, there are arguably more opportunities for Jack and Ennis to have a gay relationship than there are scenes of hate and bigotry. Kudos, I guess, for presenting homosexual characters neither mincing nor particularly good at dressing and decorating, though one does get a little tired of the single-dimensions in which the female satellites and their problems are sketched.
There was no "real" so-called "Love" relationship in this film. These two cowboys got drunk and had sex on top of a mountain for what one summer, & then what met every two to four years to do it over and over and over. Man if this is what Ang Lee calls a relationship, I would hate to see what he calls a "F&%K Buddy"! Guys who get drunk and have sex is not love! I feel like the problem is that Lee's passion for this project is several degrees cooler than his cast's--like he's looking for a place to stretch out and relax (as indicated by the sloppy editing and laggard pacing & several goofs involving Jake Gyllenhaal's mustache) while everyone else is painting in swaths of passion, desperation, and regret, or even if you want to call it that.
Ledger and Williams are not that amazing as critics & all the awards that they have collected will lead you to believe. None of the cast bring enough to the table between any of them to suggest what the film might have been--and to make "Brokeback Mountain" worth the look.
As my partner stated the characters were nothing but cardboard, and we couldn't care about them or there lives as the story went along.
As one critic pointed out, & I 100% agree: "Of course, these criticisms fly in the face of popular opinion; "Brokeback Mountain" is a booby-trapped film, designed to appear like an Oscar winner, and to be viewed without question. It's infuriating that three other, much braver gay-themed films from earlier this year, "Transamerica", "Mysterious Skin" and "Capote", won't merit a fraction of the attention lavished upon Lee's timid effort. And gay audiences who have patiently waited for their epic romantic masterpiece will have to wait still longer".
THE WORST MOMENT: If U seen the trailer, the ending is so predictable that anybody could see it coming from miles away, that once you see the film you go who cares. I won't spoil it for those who haven't see the movie, but trust me I wasn't that moved, except when the credits rolled & I could leave the theater.
I may be gay, but I didn't love this film, this to me wasn't a "gay" love story, it was more of a Cowboy "lust" picture with a low end production values, a really bad B cast and a film that felt like it went on forever & ever & ever.
I hate to say it one more time, but gay audiences (like me) who have patiently waited for their epic romantic masterpiece will have to wait still longer.