Surrender is not an option. (?)

Rating: 7/10 (30 April 2005)

In World War II many Japanese soldiers fought according to the Samurai's code of Bushido, the way of the warrior, battling to the last man and committing sepuku rather than surrendering. And then there's the kamikaze business.
The response of Americans to this was one of mixed contempt and bewilderment. Repeatedly, we still hear on TV documentaries some variation on the expression, "The Japanese fought to die for their country. We wanted to live for ours." It was said that banzai attacks were made by soldiers crazed by drugs or hopped up on saki. "Fanatics," we called them.
We have in this movie a reflection of that ethos, only here they are called heroes because they're on "our" side. It's never convincingly explained why they threw their lives away. Maybe, for any number of reasons, they wanted to exchange fire with the Mexicans -- "The drunk delight of battle with my peers."
I know that's a discomforting thought. In behavioral science it's called the social construction of reality.
It's a well-done movie. Hancock is an efficient and perceptive director. The script is more thoughtful and less condescending than John Wayne's version of the story, and the acting is better too, particularly Billy Bob Thornton, who is an amazingly versatile actor. As Davy Crockett his flabby and expressive face radiates a gleam of mischief and irony most of the time, while at other moments he seems to be contemplating a bust of Homer. He's outstanding. Dennis Quaid is good too, an actor who always brings something interesting to each performance -- as Sam Houston, a husky voice and determined frown -- but he's not on screen that much.
The battle scenes are well staged. The script gives all of the Americans and their compadres a courage touched by doubt. It also treats the Mexican soldiers as human beings. (It's a good thing our neighbors to the south aren't North Koreans or Iranians, eh?) But there is a heavy -- Santa Ana. A real grease ball of a heavy too, with an unprepossessing face painted like a corpse in a funeral parlor, thin lips, an arrogant sneer, and a complete disregard for the lives of his men or anybody else. "What are the lives of soldiers? They are like chickens." Needless to say, any legitimate claims Mexico might have had on Texas aren't gone into.
And yet this is an improvement over John Wayne's 1960 rendering. In the earlier film, the Americans are mostly comic figures playing lowbrow tricks on one another -- if you want to start a fight you have to knock a feather off your opponent's nose. Wayne's men all die super heroic deaths, with a mortally wounded Wayne deliberately blowing up an ammunition magazine, taking himself and dozens of the enemy with him. It's not exactly a "kamikaze" death but it will do. In this more recent movie, the men die for the most part just like everybody else inside the walls, except for Crockett who disdainfully invites the Mexican soldiers to perform their variation of harikiri on him.
The special effects deserve mention too. I really don't know much about the Alamo or the military technology of the time but it's interesting to see cannonballs with fuzes, which sometimes sputter out. The camera even shows us the point of view of a Mexican cannonball soaring through the sky and plopping down in the middle of the Alamo's zocalo. And to see the effects of grapeshot or cannister on massed troops. In most movies set around this time or a bit later, in the Civil War, we never get to see a cannonball hit the ground. There is simply an explosion and a few stunt men are tossed into the air. Grapeshot is never shown and I don't know why, because in close quarters it was murderous, far more devastating to attacking troops than musket fire. Grapeshot turns a cannon into a huge shotgun full of bullet-sized balls. Cannister shot takes the shell into the midst of the enemy before it explodes and sprays its little iron balls about. It was responsible for most of the deaths among the men of Pickett's charge. At any rate, technology is given its due.
The movie ends after the battle of San Jacinto. I'm not familiar with Texas' history but I know something about movie scripts and this battle seems to be in the movie mainly because we won it. It's the equivalent of Doolittle's raid on Tokyo at the end of the unfortunate "Pearl Harbor." What I mean is that it provides a victorious ending, with Sam Houston astride a rearing white charger and waving his sabre. This story really ended with the defeat at the Alamo.
I can't help wondering what this story would be like if the movie had been made by Mexico. How hard would it be to paint Texas as a secessionist province of the national territory, not unlike the Confederate South, except that Texas was being supported and populated by a foreign power?
A nice symbolic touch. The Alamo is surrounded by Mexican soldiers who persistently play the Deguello, a song meaning "no mercy." It is sunset and Davy Crockett says, "I know what's missing," and he takes out his violin, goes to the roof, and using the Mexican band as an accompanying orchestra he smoothly begins to improvise a tune which ends in a sprightly jig. A nocturne in which one lonely fiddle defies a marching band, a cavalry march turned into a violin concerto.
It's a better movie than I'd expected it to be. I'd recommend watching it. You'll get involved, even if you're already familiar with the events themselves.