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The good news first: The Alamo is perhaps the most historically accurate picture yet to reach the screen famous siege. The bad news is that “historically accurate” does not necessarily mean “dramatically successful.” Emotional inert and badly pace, The Alamo makes one of Texas’ best-known events in uninvolving bears. And, to add a dose of irony to the proceedings, the most compelling elements of the film are those that take place away from the Alamo.

Three brave defenders: Travis, Billy Bob Crockett, and BowieThe film will open in February in 1836, with Texas against Mexico during the revolution. After about 30 minutes of material creation of introducing the main characters - General Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid), the American legend Davy Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton), a knife-happy James Bowie (Jason Patrick) and the buttoned-down regular army Col. William Barret Travis (Patrick Wilson) - siege of the Alamo by soldiers Santa Ana (Emilio Echevarr n) begins. 75 minutes later, it ended, and almost all of dead. Santa Anna then Army conducts through Houston Texas. The film ends with a decisive battle at San Jacinto and the capture of Santa Anna.

As part of the movie, what happens in the Alamo easily the least interesting element of the film - at least until the Santa Ana Army makes its final push against the Texian defenders. There is a lot of unnecessary filler and dramatically ineffective material, as director John Lee Hancock futilely trying to give personality to the names that reveres history as heroes. Nevertheless, with the exception of Davy Crockett, who seemed as fatalistic ruefully man who admits that he does not like a myth, the legend attempts to humanize failure. Bowie, Seguin (Jordi Molla a), Travis, and others do not achieve the many dimensions. When Santa Anna’s forces beyond human rights, it seems more like a triumph of the cinema spectacle than human tragedy. The siege of Helms Deep in Two Towers proved that this kind of battle may be relevant and powerful. In Alamo not approached.

Dennis Quaid in Houston, complete with lamb chops addition to Crockett, who has Billy Bob Thornton plays the only character to make a partial withdrawal from the written page Houston. Dennis Quaid is the simplest and stoic, but working under, but his attempts to “incitement” speech in San Jacinto, not to be confused with Henry V of St. Crispin’s Day address ( “He that outlives this day and comes safe home, will stand in the tea-toe when the day is called “). Post-Alamo sequences, which focus on Houston, as a truncated (probably about an hour material trimmed to 20 minutes), but quickly, and provide a sense of closure to the story. (The end of the fall at Alamo would not be emotionally satisfying.) Nevertheless, the strength in Houston sequences shows the weakness of the main narrative. One may argue that in the center of the film was to be re-calibrated in Houston, not Alamo.

Films like Glory and Gettysburg to prove that you can successfully combine human drama with the 19 th century battles, but this technique, which avoided the creators In Alamo. Of course, it is hard to imagine what Hancock was in the original version, as well as film negative test result in nearly a third of the plot are being excised (this is the reason why the Christmas 2003 release date has been pushed back to Easter 2004). What remains uneven production, which has isolated moments of high energy (for the final attack on the Alamo, the most impressive film of 10 minutes), but mainly live in banal dialogue, no character interactions, and the familiar melodrama (friction between the defendants and grizzled Travis Bowie, which eventually defused when Travis proves himself). The events that took place in the Alamo will be remembered long after this film is not forgotten.

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