Stands Tall

Rating: 8/10 (11 October 2005)

(Historical spoilers ahead) The Alamo story stands as proud and singular in U.S. history as the fort itself, yet in cinema has consistently proved a magnet for pomposity and bellicosity, as in John Wayne's loud, cardboard epic that was torn between historical speechifying and horse opera shenanigans, or the under-produced, stodgy Republic production "The Last Command". John Lee Hancock's version of the story is the most historically accurate to date, but historical accuracy is far from being the only value in film-making. We also ask - is it dramatic? Exciting? Do the characters and their plight move us? Can it make us forget the simplistic drum-pound of the usual way the story is told? For the first ten minutes or so of Hancock's "The Alamo", I was unsure - a proliferation of bad wigs, scrappy character introductions, and clunker lines of dialog made me afraid I was in for an exercise along the order of "Revolution". However, Hancock slowly gained a reign on the disparate story elements, and produces a resolutely low-key film, bordering on anti-heroic. It pricks the myth of every figure involved, but it's not the loud icon-breaking satire of, say, "Little Big Man"; instead, by locating and exposing the weaknesses of its titan heroes, they become much more vital and interesting people.
Billy Bob Thornton's Davy Crockett is a wily, intelligent, haunted man who would much rather play fiddle at a dance than risk his life and those of others, yet his life has already been misshapen by his own legend. He maintains a jovial smile even as he realizes he's stumbled into a situation that will certainly mean death and horror. When he engages in up-close killing the expression on his face indicates that his stomach has sunk into his boots in sorrow. Yet, when demanded, he gives stalwart service, and his final scene is suitably heroic yet entirely in character as he meets his death with cool defiance. Jason Patric's Jim Bowie is a tough but rootless, morally and mortally sick man, hanging grimly onto the ghostly memory of brief happiness with his Tejana wife, the only escape he ever found from the pain, both physical and spiritual, from his shady of past. Patrick Wilson's William Travis is no rabble-rousing martinet but a scared, irresponsible, devolved semi-aristocrat trying desperately to prove himself up to the position of command he has been given. These are the chief figures in a minutely described, slowly building nightmare. The idea of these men's growth, touched on in "The Last Command", is here the whole story.
Dennis Quaid does good work - although he occasionally strains at being so intense and serious, when he does best bringing a wry, boyish humor to his parts - as Sam Houston, like the Alamo defenders a damaged man, the bloom having gone off his statesman's figure, reduced to a near-drunkard squabbling with tinny would-be politicians, trying to find the resolve and manpower to take on a professional army, which he painfully receives in the butchery of his friends. The trouble is, Houston disappears from the story for so long we almost forget about him, and this contributes to the film's finale, the battle of San Jocinto, being less effective than the body of the film, which so effectively involves us with the Alamo defenders, and also the action is scrappy and throwaway compared to that grand battle scene. Nonetheless, I liked that Hancock included this, as it makes it clear what the Alamo meant to the run of history, instead of appearing a context-lacking bit of bravado.
It's easy to see why this failed to light up either the box office or the awards season. It's completely against the grain of "Braveheart" and "Gladiator"-style historical romancing. Despite having been bankrolled by Disney as a work designed to inspire patriotism, it completely refuses to turn into "Pearl Harbor" idiocy. Instead, Hancock presents a tense, dark, rousing yet tragic war film, chasing solid realism and a breath of poetry, as in the scenes where Bowie, slowly expiring from consumption, lies in a candle-lit room, tended by his tough and loyal sister-in-law, whose face is a map of character and beauty; these scenes, pitched on an ethereal ground between life and death, appropriate considering these men are dying in a church, counterpoints the grim, no-nonsense necessity of the defense. Then there's the terrific moment when Crockett gives harmony to the Mexican war drums with his fiddle, the film's best expression of a sense of heroism that is resolutely human yet transcendent.
If stories that the film was severely edited are true, I expect there was some more material on Jordi Molla's fine but limited turn as Juan Seguin, one of the chief Tejana rebels, although he does get great moments towards the end, and also on the painfully contradictory position of the slaves in the Alamo, who must decide whether their first loyalty is to the people they know - their owners - or the people they don't, who might just free them. But at least this aspect is considered. This story is not the triumph of righteous Monroe Doctrinism but the history of an uncertain, contradictory idealism that might lead anywhere. Emilio Echevarria's Santa Anna - placing aside all arguments over his historical status - strikes me as a bit too old and seamy to capture a man who really did impress his soldiers and country with his dashing persona, and he never quite escapes the realm of an easy-to-hiss movie villain; it would make his final revelation as a gutless tyrant more effective if he seemed previously a bit less of a toad.
If "The Alamo" ultimately lacks the fire and consistency that make for a great film, nonetheless, like another film with a western setting, a large budget, an artistic eye, and status as a complete box office dud that I love - "Heaven's Gate" - I hope this film might stand tall in ten or twenty years time.