A desperately solemn examination of the events surrounding one of the most infamous battles in American military history, The Alamo is a well-produced movie, but one that gets too bogged down in its own self-importance to register much of an impact. Rashly assuming that audiences the world over are already well acquainted with this period of American history, director John Lee Hancock gets straight into the action with all the subtlety of a roller-skating elephant. At the start of the film, the Texas Revolution is being discussed by the army's movers 'n' shakers, chief amongst whom is the commander of Texas's army, Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid). He's involved in a struggle with the Mexican army under the command of General Santa Anna (a foppish Emilio Echevarria). Despite being portrayed in a rather unflattering light, Santa Anna is not a man to be taken lightly and his decision to besiege the Alamo in 1836 is a fateful one. A mere 183 Texan held up the mission for two weeks against 2,000 men of Santa Anna's army, amongst them Davy Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton), Jim Bowie (Jason Patric) and Col. William Travis (Patrick Wilson).
A subject like the Alamo siege is hardly going to make for a knockabout comedy, but John Lee Hancock's picture is an uncomfortably earnest examination of a subject where any sense of loss or emotion is shrouded under a veneer of self-importance. It's obvious that Hancock and his writers want to strip away the myths and half-truths that have sprung up around these legendary figures of American history. While that's not an unreasonable aim, he does it with such a heavy hand that the film - despite its supreme production values - loses itself in a haze of revisionism. Sometimes it's better just to tell the story.
