An Emotional Experience

Rating: 8/10 (7 August 2016)

I just finished revisiting this film, and despite some lingering quarrels with Davy Crockett's cheesy death scene and Dennis Quaid's overheated portrayal of Sam Houston, this movie is a wonderfully emotional experience for me as a native Texan. The macho and occasionally corny 1960 version with John Wayne, Laurence Harvey and Richard Widmark is, in my opinion, far inferior to this film. John Lee Hancock did a brilliant job of portraying the haunting fears and nagging doubts that the doomed and selfless defenders surely felt when they faced the grim reality that they were surrounded and alone. He also tried to hew pretty closely to the historic facts while engaging in the inevitable amount of dramatic license required for a Hollywood feature. I cringed when I heard that Billy Bob Thornton was cast as Davy Crockett, but he was a very pleasant surprise. His twangy Southern accent was a perfect fit for the role. The other pleasant discovery was the Hispanic actor who played Juan Seguin. This well-known Texas history story passed into the realm of heroic legend long ago, and that makes it difficult to portray without disappointing lots of viewers and history buffs who have rigid expectations. I give full credit to native Texan Hancock for even taking it on. The final siege sequence is visually stunning, inspiring, overwhelming, and heartbreaking. And the coda at San Jacinto provides an emotional catharsis. Great music score as well. I wish Hancock had been better served by a couple of the main performances, but I remain a fan of this film.