Alamo

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The Alamo? Oh, yes, I remember that.

In 1836 during the Texas war for independence from Mexico, a small band of less than 200 Texas resistance fighters occupied and defended the old mission known as the Alamo against the Mexican forces of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (or Santa Ana), who commanded an army estimated by the "Encyclopedia Britannica" as between 1,800 and 6,000 men. Among the defenders who held out for some thirteen days at the mission were Colonel James Bowie, Lt. Colonel William B. Travis, and Davy Crockett. When the Mexican army finally overwhelmed the Texans, General Santa Anna ordered that no prisoners be taken, and almost all of the insurgents were killed. It is further estimated that the Mexican army suffered casualties four to five times that of the Texans, and the time it took to wage the campaign gave General Sam Houston enough time to prepare for the defense of Texas and a counterattack, resulting in the capture of Santa Anna and the eventual liberation of Texas from Mexican rule. For the past 160-odd years, the Alamo has been for Texans a symbol of freedom, and for most U.S. citizens a symbol of passionate heroism.

Of course, if you were on the Mexican side, the battle was fought against an insurrection of rebels who needed to be quelled, so you can take your pick. The 2004 movie from Disney's Touchstone Pictures tries to be reasonably fair in presenting the outlooks of combatants on both sides, but in doing so it rather waters down the story and makes some of it seem like a History Channel documentary.

For movie buffs, this is the latest in a long line of films that depict the famous Texas siege. Fans of the old mid-fifties Davy Crockett television series (and movie) with Fess Parker will remember its ending with the battle; and fans of John Wayne will remember his 1960 rendering of "The Alamo." Before that, any number of movies about Crockett, Bowie, Travis, and Houston recounted the struggle. Unfortunately, none of them were especially well received by the moviegoing public. Wayne's release, for instance, cost at the time $12,000,000 to make and barely recovered half of that in ticket sales. This latest effort cost Disney $95,000,000 to make (how's that for inflation?) and took in less than a quarter of that in box-office receipts.

Enormous sets, budget concerns, constant delays, and creative differences lead to some of the new film's troubles, and then a holdup in the film's release date took a final toll. Director Ron Howard and stars Russell Crowe and Ethan Hawke all wound up dropping out of the production. In essence, the movie was itself a battle for the ages, and like the little band of Texas defenders, it was consumed by overwhelming odds.

Disney and its subsidiaries, Touchstone and Miramax, seem determined to resurrect the moribund Western genre despite massive public indifference. In 2003-04 they brought out not just "The Alamo" but "Open Range," "Hidalgo," and the animated "Home on the Range." I suppose we have to give the studio credit for trying, but of the lot only "Open Range" seemed to have any real heart. It will take an awful lot of DVD and television sales to make up the millions the studio lost on "The Alamo."

Which is not entirely fair. "The Alamo" is not a complete washout as a movie. Although it is probably longer than it needs to be at well over two hours, although it moves at a lumbering gait for the first thirty or so minutes, and although it emphasizes characterization and historical fact over the action an audience wants, it is not without its redeeming moments. It's that there probably aren't enough of them to justify spending 136 minutes of one's time on.

Not unexpectedly, perhaps, it is Davy Crockett who saves the day. While Dennis Quaid gets top billing as General Sam Houston, it is Billy Bob Thornton as Crockett who owns the picture. His Crockett is not the legendary bear-killing, Indian-fighting folk hero he's usually made out to be, but a rather quiet, self-effacing man whose best moments come when he's admitting that most of what people know about him is pure myth and hokum. It's hinted that as a former U.S. Congressman at the time of the siege, he didn't even come to the Alamo to fight (he wasn't aware there would be any fighting) but possibly to maintain his popularity. Still, he's most heroic when the chips are down. Thornton continues to make an impression with the range of his talents, from serious to comic, and if his Crockett had been the center of attention, the movie probably would have worked better.

But, as I say, Crockett is a secondary character in the film, with Quaid getting the lead as Sam Houston. Yet Houston is only in the film for a few minutes at the beginning, as a hard-drinking leader of a rebellious Texas militia, and for a few minutes more at the end, as the guy who finally defeats Santa Anna's army and secures Texas independence. Worse, Quaid is in his full grim-faced, almost expressionless mode, just as he was in "The Day After Tomorrow." I was afraid the man was going to break a tooth he kept his jaw clenched so hard. Except for looking determined about his cause, Quaid's Houston is practically invisible.

That leaves us with the film's other two stars, Jason Patric as the consumptive, alcoholic knife-fighter Jim Bowie and Patrick Wilson as the impulsive, headstrong, idealistic young cavalry officer William Travis, both of whom hate one another but are in dual charge of the various soldiers at the Alamo. These actors are good at portraying heroes with feet of clay, but because the movie divides its time almost equally among its four major characters--Houston, Crockett, Bowie, and Travis--it never develops any one of them in any depth. So, basically, we're left with four characters who are more enigmatic than we've ever seen them before in an Alamo movie. But at least previously we knew where they stood. Here we're given a little more information about them, and we know even less.

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