I love it when I come across a DVD in the Video Store that I wanted to see in the theaters… then forgot all about it… and now here it is right in front of me! It’s like finding that $20 you forgot you had in your wallet. The Alamo is one such film for me. So last night when I came across it on the shelf I snapped it up and took it on home. Did it live up to the excitement in my head? No.
There are several things that The Alamo does right. First of all, unlike Titanic or Pearl Harbour, The Alamo is actually about (wait for it) THE ALAMO. Where Titanic is really about Leo and his twit chick, and Pearl Harbour is about Ben and his twit chick, the story of The Alamo revolves completely around it. The Alamo isn’t just the backdrop for the movie… it IS the movie. That’s a refreshing change from the average Hollywood “historical film” drivel we’re usually subjected to.
The cinematography in this movie is just fantastic. They practically built the whole town from scratch which gave the environment a real feeling of authenticity. The walls, dirt, costumes, everything just worked visually in this flick.
Every film I see Billy Bob Thornton in I gain more and more respect for the man. Playing Davy Crockett, Thornton was amazingly engaging every second he was on the screen. Dennis Quaid, playing General Houston, did the exact same thing for me, just not quite as effective as Thornton. The only problem is that besides their two performances… the acting was generally weak in a film that needed to ride on the shoulders of strong acting. Even Jason Patric, who I generally like, was dogging it on screen. All the characters were basically stereotypes and painfully two-dimensional. The only relief from it was General Santa Ana’s half compassionate right hand man… but that was about it.
Soundtrack is something I don’t often mention in my posts, but in The Alamo it was mostly distracting and didn’t do much for me to enhance the mood or help in the telling of the story. Also, the Special Features were a bit weak. The “Making Of” documentary really wasn’t much more that a marketing tool. So much more could have been done with this… some good documentary stuff on the actual Alamo would have been smart. Oh well.
The story of The Alamo was solid. It stayed focused and never lost sight of what the movie was about. Ultimately the performance turned in by Thornton saves this film from itself. A film that suffered from sub-par direction from director John Hancock (who also wrote the fantastic script for Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil), less than stellar performances, a distracting soundtrack and sometimes forced dialog. I wanted to like this movie more, but all I can muster up for it is a 6/10.
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Davy Crockett Died at the battle of San Jancinto right.
The movie is interesting from an entertainment point of view – but it skips completely the real reason that Davy Crockett was killed at the Alamo when Houston could have shown up in time to save the day.
Davy Crockett, the celebrated hero, warrior and backwoods statesman, was born August 17, 1786.
His motto was : “Be always sure you are right, then go ahead.”
Later Davy Crockett went to Congress as the Representative of the 9th District of the State of Tennessee.
Now old General Sam Houston is one of the most famous political figures of Texas. He was born on March 2, 1793.
He ran away when his older brothers’ tried to get him to work on the family farm and in the family’s store in Maryville.
When he was about eighteen he ran away from Indians and set up a school to make money to repay debts.
When the War of 1812 broke out with the British, he left his teaching post and debts and joined the Army. Within about a year, after most of his superiors had been killed he received a commission as a third lieutenant.
He was part of Andrew Jackson’s army. He fought at the battle of Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River on March 26, 1814. Houston got the attention of General Jackson, who thereafter became his benefactor. Houston, in return, revered Jackson and became a staunch Jacksonian Republican.
After the war he became a land agent for the government and helped move a lot of Indians off their land.
Old Hickory, as Jackson was called by his admirers, pleased the people of the West. He moved on to the national scene as the standard-bearer of one wing of the old Republican party.
Houston resigned from the army on March 1, 1818 and left his job as a government agent because of difficulties.
In 1835 Davy Crockett set out for Texas
Sam Houston’s rapid rise in public office picked up in 1823, when, as a member of Jackson’s political circle, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives from the Ninth Tennessee District. He worked unsuccessfully for the election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency in 1824. In 1825 he was returned to Congress for a second and final term. In 1827, ever the Jackson prot√©g√©, Houston was elected governor of Tennessee.
Davy Crockett took his seat in Congress and immediately began to outshine Sam Houston. Davy Crockett served in the Tennessee from 9th District 1827-31 and in the 12th District 1833-35);
On January 22, 1829, at 37 years of age, Sam Houston married nineteen-year-old Eliza Allen of Gallatin, Tennessee. After eleven weeks the marriage ended and Eliza returned to her parents’ home. Houston then abruptly resigned from his office on April 16 and ran away across the Mississippi River to Indian Territory.
Houston’s abrupt exit was the end of him in Tennessee politics.
Among the Indians he dressed Indian-style and, although he corresponded with Andrew Jackson, initially secluded himself from contacts with white society. He drank so heavily that he earned the nickname “Big Drunk.”
Under Cherokee law, he married Diana Rogers Gentry, an Indian woman of mixed blood. Together, they established a residence and trading post called Wigwam Neosho on the Neosho River near Fort Gibson.
He made various trips East-to Tennessee, Washington, and New York and was whispered to have been dealing in whiskey and guns.
He then ran away from his wife, Diana and his life among the Indians. Houston crossed the Red River into Mexican Texas on December 2, 1832, and began another, perhaps the most important, phase of his career.
He quickly became embroiled in the rebellion.
He served as a delegate from Nacogdoches at the Convention of 1833 in San Felipe, where he sided with the more radical faction under the leadership of William H. Wharton.
He also pursued a law practice in Nacogdoches and finally filed for divorce from Eliza. As prescribed by Mexican law, he was baptized into the Catholic Church under the name Samuel Pablo.
In September 1835 he chaired a mass meeting in Nacogdoches to consider the possibility of convening a consultation. By October, Houston had expressed his belief that war between Texas and the central government was inevitable. That month he became commander in chief of troops for the Department of Nacogdoches and called for volunteers to begin the “work of liberty.”
After joining his army in Gonzales, Houston and his troops ran away eastward away from the Mexican army under Gen. Santa Anna. The Texas rebels had a general lack of discipline.
The citizenry ran away as well in the so-called Runaway S****e.
Houston and his men defeated Santa Anna’s forces at San Jacinto on the afternoon of April 21, 1836.
The Mexican Army had stopped to rest. They had let down their guard. Their horses were grazing. The families of Mexican soldiers often traveled with the Army and this time was no different.
The Army was at their ease in fields and groves below the hills from where Houston watched them. The Texans did nothing as the women prepared the midday meal and the men took their leisure – their weapons stacked about.
When the families began to eat the Texans came storming out of the trees and shot and stabbed anyone or anything in their way – horses, men, women and children.
The Mexican Army surrendered quickly in the face of this barbaric attack by a smaller force.
During this engagement Houston was wounded just above the right ankle.
General Santa Anna surrendered the next day. At San Jacinto, Sam Houston became forever enshrined as a member of the pantheon of Texas heroes and a symbol for the age.
Following this, some time later on May 9, 1840, Houston married another woman, twenty-one-year-old Margaret Moffette Lea of Marion, Alabama.
When Crockett with his companions arrived, Colonel Bowie, of Louisiana, was in the church. Colonel Travis was in command.
Early in the month of February, 1836, the army of Santa Anna appeared before the town, with infantry, artillery, and cavalry. The Texan invaders, seeing that they would soon be surrounded, abandoned the town to the enemy, and fled to the protection of the citadel. There were only about one hundred and fifty of them. Almost without exception they were desperate men.
Santa Anna sent a summons to Colonel Travis, demanding an unconditional surrender.
The only reply Colonel Travis made was to throw a cannon-shot into the town. The Mexicans then opened fire from their batteries, but without doing much harm.
In the night, Colonel Travis sent a message to Colonel Fanning at Goliad to come to his aid. Goliad was about four days away. The next morning the Mexicans renewed their fire from a battery about three hundred and fifty yards from the fort.
On March 3, Travis sent out a final request for help. Houston moved slowly through the countryside and finally on March 11 received the information he had been waiting for. The Alamo had fallen and one of his political enemies was dead. Without Crockett Texas would become an independent nation and Houston its leader.
Binbrook Video – for all your middle-of-nowhere movie needs! You can’t miss us, there’s only one stoplight in the whole township!
HAHA!!! i think the whole reason that I do this site is to read the comments!!! :)
Maybe if Roberto Benigni had directed and presented it as a “comedy in the tragedy”?
What this movie needed to be a success at the box office:
Focus on a fictional teen love story set against this historical event. Handsome Young White Guy who fights at The Alamo, but he’s also in love with Hot Young Latina Girl. So he’s torn between the two. Oh, and fighting at The Alamo with him is his Cool African American Buddy (probably played by Cuba Gooding Jr.).