How The West Was
Won-Again-The Film Adaptation Of Cormac McCarthy’s “All The Pretty Horses” (2000)-A
Review
DVD Review
By Film Critic Sam
Lowell
[I noted in a recent
comment introducing a review of It
Happened One Night by now film critic emeritus Sam Lowell that he had done
that review and then put it in one of his desk drawers and only in the process
of cleaning out that desk did he find a draft copy of that review. Apparently
the old curmudgeon is either playing me the fool or he really should be placed
out to pasture as he is fond of saying these days because a draft copy of the
review below was also found among the debris of that lifetime accumulation. I
will only say for now that this is the last one to be posted. Of course if Sam
finds anything else I will be glad to publish it as I have for the past decade
or so. Peter Markin, site moderator]
All The Pretty Horses,
starring Matt Damon, Henry Thomas, Penelope Cruz, directed by Billy Bob
Thornton, based on the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy
Unlike another tale, a
coming of age tale if you like, of the modern American West, of the Texas
west, The Last Picture Show, where I read the novel by Larry McMurtry
first then the film I have seen the film under review the adaptation of Cormac
Mc Carthy’s All The Pretty Horses
without having read the novel. But after watching the film I will make it my
business to read the novel which deals with a different aspect of the West, the
cowboy West when ranch life goes south on its main characters and they are left
to fend for themselves. A task which in true Western fashion has them groping
to stay alive, although that was a close thing.
John Grady Cole (hey
that is the way he introduced himself to one and all), played by Matt Damon, was
career-less, cowboy career-less after his grandfather died and his mother
decided to sell the ranch leaving this young cowboy with horses in his blood
with no place to go. No place but to go looking for work south of the Rio
Grande, south of the border down Mexico
way with his longtime fellow cowboy Lacey played by Henry Thomas.
Whatever adventure,
whatever expectations they had about making a living as ranch hands down in
Mexico were disturbed along the way when they met a vagabond Blevens who was
strange to say the least. Along the way
Blevens lost his horse and then found it again at a ranch. This brings in the
factor of horse-stealing which will drive a lot of the action in the film, and
which is as heinous a crime in modern day Mexico (and Texas too) as in the old
days when horse thieves were strung up in an age when to take a man’s horse was
to take away his livelihood, his means of travel and his manhood. Along the way
because John Grady and Lacey are tarred with the same brush as Blevens they
will see just what that meant. They were able to get work at a huge ranchero
where John Grady got special recognition by the owner for his keen eye for
horse flesh. Along the way as well they wind up because of Bleven’s actions in
custody and eventually in the “you don’t want to go there” penitentiary after a
corrupt Mexican cop wasted the unfortunate Blevens while John Grady and Lacey
watched helplessly. They survived the prison ordeal somehow and Lacey decided
to head home. John Grady decided he had some unfinished business and was
staying to pursue that.
That unfinished business
was as to be expected getting his girlfriend to go back to Texas with him. This
girlfriend Alejandra, played by fetching Penelope Cruz, a firebrand and well
worth taking some grief for was unfortunately for John Grady the daughter of
the ranchero owner and so they were fated to part, fated in part because the
price of getting John Grady and Lacey out of that “you don’t want to go there”
prison was that she would not see him again, certainly would not go away with
him. That was that.
On his way back home across
the border with his horse, Lacey’s and the late Bleven’s in tow as some sort of
symbol of the experiences he had down south of the border he is stopped in
Texas and essentially accused of that same horse-stealing charge. He got out of
trouble once he told his story to a judge and then meandered back to Lacey’s
place with those three damn horses. Yeah, the modern West is a tough dollar for
a cowboy loving man just like in the Old West. See this one for the pretty
horses, pretty scenery and pretty Cruz.
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