THE ALAMO (2004) **1/2 In which Billy Bob Thornton would have us believe that one of Tom Morello's musical influences was Davy Crockett. Well, I said he'd have us believe, and truth is that Billy Bob makes a fine-if inconsistent-portrayal of someone who's very cool, and even tougher, and I imagine that it caught a lot of Crockett, and I suspect that it may have caught some Thornton where Crockett wasn't at. But it's good, and everyone there knew it was a movie. And it is a movie...once again Hollywood lacks confidence in their truthful story, and so they all gild it up like a fawnmeister chasing glockespiels at a furnace burning convention. Which has its own charm, some of the shots are very cool, the cannonball shot...but it does keep the grit from attaining critical mass, which at points the production squad does seem to recall as much of the point. So they inject some, usually with Billy Bob speaking point. Cool cast, they write Dennis Quaid's Sam Houston into such a visually impaired spiritual metamorphosis that it seems Dennis is pretty clever for making him look that way all along....history buffs know what I mean. And Jason Patric catches some serious David Bowie....I mean Jim Bowie, but I kept wondering why he didn't work in a little more The Lost Boys into it.... I dunno, I liked it, it's sure to get some patriotic blood boilin', it threw in a few contemporary commentaries in prophetic disguise...ah hell, it's their true story, who cares if they make it up, kind of.?
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