a character study

Rating: 5/10 (10 April 2004)

i thought it was going to be an action film, but it turned out to be a character study. davy crockett, jim bowie, and sam huston were the primary (known) characters. despite having ample material (both real and fictional) to draw from, though, the characters take on neither a mythical, nor a true, life of their own. that is, even though there's plenty of folklore to draw upon in portraying men like huston or crockett, the film does a surprising poor job of transforming them into legends. and that is rather surprising since that's usually what hollywood does so well - making good men into legends; here they seem to do the opposite. davy crockett is played by billy bob thornton and he does the best job of the entire cast, but none of them really transcend the moment or the form. burt lancaster or kurt russell as wyatt earp or paul newman and robert redford as butch and sundance...those performances elevated the characters beyond the screen and into the realm of legend. unfortunately this film needed, and never got, that sort of transcendent performance. some of it was the acting, some of it was the writing and some of it was the direction which was unimpressive and slowly paced. the set was impressive, but that's about all that i can say about the movie. C-.