All the Pretty Horses (film)
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| Director(s) | Billy Bob Thornton |
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| Distributor | Sony Pictures |
| Adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s award-winning novel, All the Pretty Horses cries for epic length but runs only 112 minutes for theatrical release. Drastically shortened during a lengthy stretch between production and release, this operatic drama feels as if huge chunks are missing, and what remains are fragments of a masterpiece that might have been. Unless a more definitive version is revealed, we must settle for this faint echo of McCarthy’s ambitious narrative, in which dispossessed Texas rancher John Grady Cole (Matt Damon) ventures to Mexico in 1949 to… | |
Reviews
Amazon.com
Adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s award-winning novel, All the Pretty Horses cries for epic length but runs only 112 minutes for theatrical release. Drastically shortened during a lengthy stretch between production and release, this operatic drama feels as if huge chunks are missing, and what remains are fragments of a masterpiece that might have been. Unless a more definitive version is revealed, we must settle for this faint echo of McCarthy’s ambitious narrative, in which dispossessed Texas rancher John Grady Cole (Matt Damon) ventures to Mexico in 1949 to revive his fading dreams of cowboy glory. With best friend Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas), Cole’s odyssey takes him from youthful idealism to rugged, often horrific, and ultimately ennobling tests of integrity.
Much of Cole’s ordeal is sparked by his forbidden love for Alejandra (Penelope Cruz), the beautiful daughter of his Mexican employer, whose family honor is threatened by their mutual attraction. A gunslinging teenager (Lucas Black) casts a black cloud over them all, and All the Pretty Horses becomes a test of Cole’s ability to navigate a labyrinth of distorted truth, imprisonment, and hard-fought redemption. All of which begs for emotional depth and carefully developed characters, but this truncated film lacks both. Scenes jump from one to the next with obvious gaps between them, lending no opportunity for emotional investment. It’s clear that director Billy Bob Thornton is attempting to redefine the Western, and the effort is laudable on many points, notably in its perfect match of visuals and a flavorful musical score. There’s much to admire in this film, making its shortcomings all the more lamentable. —Jeff Shannon
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On the face of it, All the Pretty Horses should have everything going for it as a movie, taken from the novel by Cormac McCarthy acclaimed as one of the finest pieces of American writing of the past 20 years. The intuitive, up-and-coming actor-director Billy Bob Thornton, with a deep love of McCarthy’s novels, takes the helm directing two hot young stars (Matt Damon, Penelope Cruz) and backed by some seasoned veterans (Sam Shepherd, Bruce Dern, Rubén Blades et al) along with first-rate technical support.
The plot seems tailor-made for landmark-movie status too. A downbeat, resonant tale that would have intrigued Sam Peckinpah, it tells of two young cowboys from post-WWII Texas, who cross the Rio Grande in search of the rugged adventurous life modern America can no longer offer them. And south of the border they find just what they’re looking for—but in harsher, darker and far more brutal guise than they ever dreamt of.
All the ingredients point towards the makings of a classic Western. Yet somehow they never quite jell. Powerfully photographed by Barry Markowitz, All the Pretty Horses looks unfailingly superb, and Ted Tally’s screenplay draws on much of the novel’s spare, trenchant dialogue. Thornton handles the action sequences with assurance, especially the marathon horse-breaking episode. But it all feels distanced, and never dark or bleak enough for McCarthy’s savage vision. Maybe Damon is as yet too young and bland for his character’s agonised trajectory. There were rumours of script problems, of scenes ruthlessly excised; Thornton claims that Miramax cut the film. Whatever the causes, the film is handsome to look at, absorbing to watch, but casts few shadows in the mind.
On the DVD: Filmographies for Thornton and half-a-dozen leading players; the theatrical trailer (plus trailers for two other Miramax releases, Finding Forrester and Almost Famous); subtitles and a menu. In something of a missed opportunity the DVD lacks a commentary from Billy Bob could have been illuminating. But at least the crisp print, full-width ratio (1:2.35) and the Dolby 5.1 sound do the film’s technical achievements proud. —Philip Kemp
Barnes and Noble
Billy Bob Thornton’s film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s award-winning novel is an elegiac, handsomely rendered western about a young Texas cowboy whose inchoate longing for adventure takes him south of the border. Matt Damon portrays John Grady Cole, a dispossessed rancher joined by best friend Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas) on his trip to Mexico, by where wealthy rancher Don Hector Villarel (Rubén Blades) offers them work. Cole falls in love with Don Hector’s spirited daughter, Alejandra (a luminous Penelope Cruz), but their tempestuous romance is disrupted when he’s imprisoned for crimes instigated by another traveling companion. The story unfolds in the years immediately following World War II, during which time the last vestiges of the Wild West were disappearing. Director Thornton (Sling Blade) wants us to empathize with his young protagonists: They’re more than boys but not yet men, yearning to be part of a tradition already receding into history. A contemporary evocation of western-movie themes, All the Pretty Horses is also a lovingly crafted, occasionally plaintive celebration of an all-but-vanished way of life. The DVD edition includes production notes, talent files, and theatrical trailers. Ed Hulse
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The national bestseller and the first volume in Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, All the Pretty Horses is the tale of John Grady Cole, who at sixteen finds himself at the end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for himself. With two companions, he sets off for Mexico on a sometimes idyllic, sometimes comic journey to a place where dreams are paid for in blood.
