This Just Misses

Rating: 6/10 (18 April 2004)

Infuriating best describes this new version of the story of the Alamo. Everything is there except for a script to hold it all together.
The story of the Alamo has been told several times on screen and for the most part they have all been pretty good little trips into our nations mythology.
In the current incarnation the story is concerned with much more than the battle itself, it stretches from a year before the battle through to the end of the Texan War for Independence. For one of the few times we get what the battle meant in context of the fight for freedom. The problem is that in trying to cover so much the movie plays like a History Channel special come to life, there are too many characters and too many events to fill a two hour movie. You want to care more than you do, but you can't since most of the characters remain largely cyphers. Only Billy Bob Thornton becomes his character, and does so in a performance worthy of Oscar consideration.
As good as some pieces of this is I have to give it a 6 out of ten simply because it doesn't connect the way it should.