Despite the popular phrase, “The Alamo” is forgettable.
Directed by John Lee Hancock, the film begins with Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid), surrounded by men with mutton chops, drinking whiskey and toasting, “To Texas!” In a matter of minutes, Davy Crockett (the truly inspiring Billy Bob Thornton) and Jim Bowie (the creepy Jason Patric), of Bowie Knife fame, are all slugging back drinks and burying their internal pain over dead wives and personal identities.
It’s a testament to Thornton that he can pull off lines like, “I’m just Davy from Tennessee, not the man in the coonskin cap played on the stage.”
So Bowie, Crockett and an uptight young Lt. Col. named Travis (Patrick Wilson) arrive at the Alamo and marvel at the former Catholic mission’s statue of St. Francis of Assisi, whom we are told had the gifts of prophecy and inspiration.
This is where the film could have dipped its toe into the actual truths and ironies of warfare or even – dare a non-documentary film do so – draw parallels to the war the United State is in now. But this is a film directed by the same guy who did “The Rookie.”
In the Hollywood vein of pleasing us Midwestern folk, who only see films that reassure us what we believe is right, the film attempts to tell the story of seemingly everyone who stepped foot near the Alamo.
Bowie, played with a surly intensity and a husky Don Corleone-by-way-of-Dallas accent, holds the pain deep inside for the sake of the Alamo, only to get typhoid fever at the start of the battle. Bowie’s dead wife and his indentured servant get a subplot. Patric is such a creep he makes Thornton look wholesome.
Thornton gives his character believable humility and self-knowledge. He is the true leader in the film and doesn’t have to resort to Houston’s vacant cheerleading and smirky fearmongering. Crockett rallies the troops, reveals his fears, shoots the gold shoulder pad right off the evil General Santa Ana, looks deep into the eyes of a dying enemy soldier and plays the violin.
Quaid as Houston is a leader who knows better than everyone else and spouts iconic phrases worthy of history books as if he’d just heard them in the tavern.
“As goes the Alamo, so goes Texas,” Houston shouts to men unsure whether to support sending troops to the fort. The movie showed us one relevant thing: Don’t mess with Texas.
