A flawed but still great film

Rating: 10/10 (20 March 2020)

Growing up in Texas, I was always fascinated by the Texas Revolution, the Alamo in particular. When the film was released in 2004, I watched it in theater and was eager.
The film got many things wrong but many things right. In comparing this to John Wayne's Alamo (1960) there is a lot of humanizing of characters. General Anna is shown as a brutal man by executing prisoners but also as a charismatic and intelligent officer.
Crockett, Bowie and Travis are also developed as flawed men who came to Texas to start new lives because their old ones failed, Travis ran out on his pregnant wife, Bowie was a land swindler, and Crockett because his political career ended.
General Houston is also more developed than John Wayne's version as a man fighting other officers and politicians as well as General Santa Anna. There was so much infighting with the Texian government and military that it nearly destroyed it and that is shown here.
The film gets many things right, the final assault being a night battle, the layout of San Antonio and the Alamo as it was in 1836. The only real gripe I have is having the Alamo chapel abreast of the convention "Long Barracks" when it was 50 or so feet behind it to make a small courtyard with the palisade manned by Crockett and his Tennesseans. The uniforms, weapons, mannerisms and characters are also more accurate than Wayne's version, though smaller in scale. Wayne used thousands of extras to form the Mexican army. Here they had a only a few hundred. Here though, the 2004 version went the extra mile getting uniforms, weapons, and even drill right. In the Behind the Scenes feature it's shown the production crew found a period manual for the Mexican army and used it to drill their troops. Quality over quantity.
Billy Bob Thorton bears an uncanny resemblance to the actual Crockett. He was made for this role. He steals each scene he's in.
Where are the flaws? It's not what's in the film. It's what was left out of it.
For a story this complex with so many events and characters, it's obvious that many things be either condensed or removed for the sake of moving the plot. I possess the film's official companion book. In it is a that includes a copy of the screenplay. It shows that so many characters and development was left out of the finished film.
Many characters and key moments were whittled down or removed from the final film. Alamo survivor Susannah Dickinson is left with just one line of dialog. James Butler Bonham, who left and returned to the Alamo with messages, had all his lines removed and is in only two scenes, one is his death, and sense he has no name and no development, his death is overlooked by the audience. General Cos was Santa Anna's brother-in-law, the officer that surrendered San Antonio and the Alamo in 1835, retook it in the final assault, and was later captured after he fled the San Jacinto battlefield. In the finished film, I think, he appears in two scenes and has no dialog.
The young Mexican soldier that is shown shooting and killing Travis is fictional though in think he embodies much of Santa Anna's army. His name is Jesus and the screenplay has him being forcibly conscripted before the siege. In the scene leading up to Crockett shooting off General Santa Anna's empulette, the General speaks with the reluctant soldier who bravely accused the General of hanging his father when he was fighting the Spanish.
Another fictional character was virtually eliminated from the final film was another boy named Matthew. He's briefly scene when Houston is drinking in the store at Gonzales pushing a broom. The screenplay has Matthew joining Houston's army after the Alamo and fighting at San Jacinto. As the Mexican camp is overrun, he and Jesus run into, shoot, and mortally wound each other.
Some scenes are available on the DVD version, Santa Anna marrying a young woman in San Antonio, complete with his aide Batres posing as a priest for the wedding. General Cos and his army leaving San Antonio after their surrender in 1835. But these are just a fraction of what is missing. If you want to see it for yourself, go get the companion book it's well worth it.
I pray that a director's cut is released of this film, restoring the lost footage and giving us a larger story. If that ever happens, I'll charge into the store to get it.