Pretty disappointing movie, all in all...

Rating: 2/10 (7 February 2006)

Ignore all the hype that surrounds this movie. It's been one that produces vastly differing opinions at either end of the scale, but not because of the qualities of the film itself - there's far too much political nonsense wrapped up in the way people are viewing this movie and it should be judged on no more than how efffective it is at portraying the story in question. Too many people seem to have gone into this having already made up their mind that they were going to hate it or that they were going to be mesmerised by it.
In truth, it's a fairly ordinary film. If it wasn't about homosexuality it would barely have gotten a mention, but as it is everybody feels the need to show how enlightened they are by writing melodramatic stories about how it's changed their life. That's just another bandwagon for people to jump onto though. In reality, this has a few decent moments, a decent premise and some stunning cinematography; apart from that it's badly put together and ignores far too many details.
When I say 'details', I'm talking about the fundamentals, the foundational stuff. For example, the accents start out pretty bad and by the end of the film they're just plain awful. Jake Gyllenhall doesn't know how to ride a horse which - given that he's playing a rodeo rider - is just sloppy directing by Ang Lee. Apart from that though, I thought Gyllenhall was the better of the two main parts. Apart from the accent and the riding he did a very good job with it. Heath Ledger just mumbled a lot.
The main problem with this movie is that it was about their struggle to come to terms with what happened up there on Brokeback Mountain - about their inner turmoil over it given their strict, traditional upbringings. With that in mind, they jumped into the sack with each other WAY too easily. It didn't build - it was far too easy a transition for them to go from nothing at all to stroking each other lovingly, and when that's what you're building a film on top of you need to make sure it feels authentic. This just didn't.
So overall, some really nice camera-work, some mixed acting, a flimsy plot and a criminal lack of attention to detail adds up to a pretty ordinary movie. I wouldn't bother with it if I were you, but if it's one you want to have an opinion on then then don't expect anything spectacular. The scene with the fireworks is pretty cool though.