Should I feel guilty?

Rating: 7/10 (9 October 2018)

On release it was met with disdain at worst, indifference at best, and now historically it stands as the second biggest box office failure. The pre-release word of mouth wasn't good, and with "difficulties" of the financial and creative kind leading to Ron Howard leaving the directors chair-and Russell Crowe and Ethan Hawke dishing out roles for two of the main characters, the film has never had an equal footing from which to try and sell itself as a worthy epic. Yet if there is a western styled war film most likely to improve with age, then Hancock's Alamo is it. You see, in time it's hoped that people can embrace that this take on the Alamo legend thrives on humanistic depth, telling it not as a "hooray" hero piece, but as it was, men doomed to die. And more pertinent, men who "knew" that in all probability, they were waiting for death to come.
Hancock should be roundly applauded for having the courage to craft such an honest depiction of the siege, and it's not as if we aren't warned about it, either in history as fact, or during the downbeat opening five minutes of film. So a film rich with in depth characterizations, then, but also a picture layered over with considerable technical skill. Hancock himself only really misfires by having a tacked on coda that shows Houston defeating Santa Anna and gaining his surrender. Who made the decision for this uplift I'm not sure, but it feels forced and doesn't have the impact intended. It would have been more telling and poignant to just have a title card flash up to tell us that Houston defeated Santa Ann in 18 minutes. We don't need to see a hurried recreation, the somber mood needed to be kept up right to the last end credit rolled. For that's the true pain of The Battle of the Alamo. In other words, if you're movie is more depressing than a funeral, don't try to cheer someone up with a 5-minute scene.
And now returning to the present day. As watching this from my "US History through FIlm" class, I think to myself, "Should I feel guilty?" I believe I shouldn't, but there's a constant voice in my mind asking me why not... how my American ancestors are responsible for making this happen. However, I then remind myself that I'm supposed to be an arrogant teenager, so I try to forget any problems that exist in our society. Anyway, I'm getting off track, so I'll return to the review. Although "The Alamo" has several flaws, it is still a movie worth the watch, and will help educate many individuals on the great, dire battle that lacked meaning in all ways. This movie: 7/10 The battle this movie is based on: 0.00001/10