Solid pioneer drama

Rating: 7/10 (5 March 2007)

Director Zwick takes elements that could be very forgettable (like the recent "Cold Mountain") and turns them into a very engaging story about a frontier family torn apart by jealousies and pride. Only the film's tidy ending lowers it somewhat from being an excellent film.
The story concerns a former warrior in both the Civil and Indian Wars, Colonel William Ludlow (Anthony Hopkins) after he settles down in the Dakota territory to raise his 3 sons. Bright, well-educated and well-groomed son Samuel (Henry Thomas) brings home a lovely and also well-groomed fiancé Susannah (Julia Ormond) just before heading off to fight for France in WWI on an idealistic impulse that his father opposes. His other 2 brothers accompany him -- one older and feeling himself to be the most responsible, Alfred (Aidan Quinn), and the other younger and more wild Tristan (Brad Pitt), whose habits and inclinations match the adventurous spirit of his namesake. After Sam is killed in action, the other 2 brothers begin a decades long battle over Susannah's love which divides the family and brings great sadness to everyone's lives.
The performances are reasonably well done. Hopkins is always good as a rough former gentleman, and I found his defensive attitude when his sons decide it is their duty to go to war very well done. I also have to admire his work in the second half of the film after a stroke has left his character unable to move the right side of his body. Hopkins' performance becomes more intense and sad as his character recedes more and more into old age. Ormond was suitable but little more.... not only was the character written so that we can't really understand why she ends up marrying Alfred despite being in love with Tristan, but she does little to add to the mystery with her understated way of showing depression later in the film. Quinn does the best work of the 3 sons -- the picture clearly emerges of a man who is trying hard to do the right thing and feels intolerable pain at the fact that his father and even his wife feel more love for the less reliable and amoral Tristan regardless. There are many points in the story where we don't like Alred, but for the most part Quinn enables us to see the character's actions through his own eyes. Pitt's performance varies from very effective to somewhat unconvincing depending on the nature of the scene he's playing. I thought his sadness over Samuel's death was very convincing, but I never 100% bought into the notion that he was so uncivilized that he would just run off for years without leaving a trace or sending word. I never really bought that he was this Davy Crockett type pioneer guy. Part of that is physical and can't be blamed on Pitt -- he's just too pretty to believe that he never sleeps on a bed. There are also some good supporting performances, particularly Gordon Tootoosis who puts in time as a former chieftain who Ludlow has more or less adopted. His presence greatly aids Pitt's attempts to appear as a kind of free spirit of the wild.
The film's great strength is in the direction, which distracts the audience from various points that might have seemed cliché. The director's focus is on his characters and he never lets attention wander to the landscape or the scenery for too long, despite the excellent production values.
The film's greatest weakness is the fact that distraction would be possible at all, or that you would need such good photography and direction to cover up the somewhat obvious nature of the script. (SPOILER) The death of Tristan's wife was the only real shocker for me, and everything after that point including Alfred's rejoining the fold in the final shoot-out was somewhat predictable.
Overall, a very good film of its type.