About As Interesting As the Real Place.

Rating: Null/10 (12 May 2004)

Sometimes history just never does really come to life on the silver screen. John Wayne learned this way back in 1960 when he starred and co-directed (with the uncredited John Ford) "The Alamo". The film was a giant bust and even though it survived due to a very generous group of Academy Award voters and friends of John Wayne, the mega-superstar was still somewhat disgraced as a film-maker and made out to be a performer who really knew very little about closed-doors Hollywood. Fast-forward 44 years and we have another version that just makes Wayne's version look that much better (not an easy feat to accomplish by the way). "The Alamo" in 2004 is a myth- and legend-filled bore of would-be epic proportions that puts itself in the embarrassing class with recent flops like "Wyatt Earp", "Gettysburg" and "Gods and Generals". The setting is Texas from 1835 through early March of 1836 when the titled Catholic mission in San Antonio, Texas fell under a 13-day siege from Mexican dictator/royal military commander Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana (played by the admittedly excellent Emilio Echevarria). The ambush though lasted mere minutes as a few thousand Mexican soldiers finally stormed a make-shift military base that housed only about 200 Texicans (old-time Texans and Mexican-Texans who had American and/or Mexican backgrounds). Why did this event drag on for nearly two weeks then? Very simple.......Santa Ana wanted to get Texas General Sam Houston (played by the always drunk Dennis Quaid) baited into the large graveyard along with legends Jim Bowie (Jason Patric), William Travis (Patrick Wilson) and Davy Crockett (a strangely alluring turn by the always impressive Billy Bob Thornton). Historically Houston would make Santa Ana have his Waterloo (well actually one of several for the on-again-off-again Mexican dictator) with San Jacinto, a surprise attack battle that took place shortly after the Alamo disaster. Texan director John Lee Hancock (who had a little success a couple of years ago with the over-achieving "The Rookie") gets caught up in silly dialog by "Traffic" screenwriter Stephen Gaghan (I still cannot believe he wrote this script) and then gets mired in spectacle (which is not that impressive to start with) and loses the focus on his interesting characters (Santa Ana and Crockett in particular). Historically the film is not very accurate either. Crockett's final moments are mythical and the Battle of San Jacinto was a total surprise attack in reality (that is why it took less than 20 minutes for Santa Ana's Military to be defeated there). In this film it is made to look like a realized confrontation and it was not. Also Santa Ana got caught at San Jacinto with his pants down literally as he was in his tent with a woman aka "The Yellow Rose of Texas". That too is never shown here and we are left with yet another inaccuracy. In this situation the history would have been better than the script itself. In short none of the people who worked on this know too much about Texas history and it is painfully evident as the whole production becomes a long and tiring teleplay-styled dud. Patric and Wilson are totally unwanted. Jordi Molla (as Seguin) seems to be the focus early, but disappears before we get to even know who he really is. Thornton uses his down-home country boy routine to humanize Davy Crockett and Echevarria is the production's strongest point as the cold, brash and flashy Santa Ana. Echevarria is one of those great actors (making a real name for himself in recent triumphs like "Amores Perros" and "Y Tu Mama Tambien") who no one seems to know or care about. I really wanted a movie about Santa Ana instead of the Texans because really he was the only believable and reputable element of the whole winding mess. Brick by brick, "The Alamo" falls with a tremendous thud that I saw coming before the first act even hit its half-way point. 2 stars out of 5.