Under Siege

Rating: 3/10 (31 January 2016)

Texan John Lee Hancock certainly has the name to direct this revisionist epic but it lacks the bluster, hysterics of the liberties with the truth John Wayne production. Instead it is a prosaic and po faced film that feels too long and when the action finally comes you are reminded of Zulu and at one point you even sense Michael Caine will enter the Alamo shouting at the Mexicans not to fire any more cannons.
Davy Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton) is a man living up to his legend but offered a monetary incentive of land and political power to fight for an independent Texas which at the time was held by Mexico. General Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid) is a boorish drunk politician organising a land grab, Jim Bowie (Jason Patric) is ill with TB but swaggers with an out-sized knife. Lt Colonel William Travis (Patrick Wilson) the earnest military leader who needs to earn respect from his troops.
The film by wanting to flesh out its main characters ends up making the narrative choppy. As we wait for the epic battle, it just feels like an interminable hiatus but the film never misses a trick to show up Crockett as epic. If I had spotted him playing the fiddle I would had taken a pot shot at him.
The Mexican leader is portrayed as an arrogant cartoon villain but the film's big mistake is not to include the history of Texas and give the audience who are not versed with American history some kind of potted history lesson of the lone star state that was not part of the USA and under Mexican control who as far as they were concerned were well within their rights to keep control of it.
The film has tremendous sets and art direction, it tries to address the issue of slavery, the irony that Mexico abolished slavery and the whites wanted independence so they could maintain it. You see Bowie's slave thinking for a moment that he might had been set free and the film ignores the fact that other heroes in this movie were also slave owners.