GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1993 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Jason Patric, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, Wes Studi, Matt Damon. Screenplay: John Milius and Larry Gross. Director: Walter Hill.
To paraphrase the old song, and to make a distressing confession, I don't know much about history. When approaching a film based on historical subject matter, I rarely find myself basing my critique on accuracy, for better or worse. Nevertheless, I had a feeling I was going to have a problem with GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND as sool as I noted that Wes Studi, who portrays the title character, had been given fourth billing. As authentic as it looks, GERONIMO just doesn't click because it doesn't make its principal character the focus of the story. Like DANCES WITH WOLVES, it's not so much a story about Native Americans as it is about guilty white men.
GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND is narrated by 2nd Lt. Britton Davis (Matt Damon), a fresh-out-of-West Point officer assigned to the 6th Cavalry responsible for re-settling Apaches in the American Southwest on reservations. The only resisters are the Chirokawa Apache, led by Geronimo (Wes Studi). Geronimo surrenders himself to sympathetic 1st Lt. Charles Gatewood (Jason Patric) and Gen. George Crook (Gene Hackman) as the film opens, but an incident on the Turkey Creek Reservation enrages Geronimo. He breaks off with a small band of warriors and begins a violent series of raids on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. Gatewood, Davis and veteran Indian tracker Al Sieber (Robert Duvall) attempt to track down the Apaches and make a deal the U.S. has no intention of keeping.
Perhaps the most glaring problem with the script for GERONIMO is that it doesn't seem to have a direction or a clear enough sense of its point of view. Although the narration is coming from Davis, GERONIMO is not a first-person narrative. Much takes place without him present, so it's difficult to see events as they develop as somehow having an impact on Davis. When Davis gives an impassioned statement near the end of the film about his shame at the government's treatment of the Apache, I found myself wondering why he was the one to get that scene. As questionable as the decision to let the story come from a white man might be, GERONIMO at least should have had the conviction to show us more through his eyes once that decision was made, so that Davis' loss of innocence makes sense.
Screenwriters John Milius and Larry Gross also do a less than impressive job of making Geronimo himself come alive. Wes Studi is grim-faced and taciturn, but his anger is never real enough. Perhaps out of some fear of making him too unsympathetic, they show Geronimo actually killing unarmed settlers only once, and that scene is given a "they asked for it quality." Geronimo is treated more as a symbol than a man, and I came away from the film with very little insight into his character.
All this is not to say that GERONIMO doesn't do many things right. Cinematographer Lloyd Ahern does some of the year's finest work, capturing the Southwestern deserts in rich reds and oranges. Director Walter Hill (THE LONG RIDERS) and Milius (CONAN THE BARBARIAN, APOCALYPSE NOW) are veterans of bloody cinema, and their battle scenes are well choreographed. Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall both turn in typically marvelous performances, finding much more nuance than the script provides, and their one scene together is truly great work. Ry Cooder's score is also noteworthy. In fact, everything about GERONIMO screams "epic," but somewhere along the line a fair amount of substance leaked out of the stylish wrapper.
GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND clocks in at about 1:55, short by the standards of the holidays' other big releases, yet it seemed much longer. A barroom showdown with a group of bounty hunters didn't seem to serve any real purpose, and the editing generally seemed disjointed. GERONIMO wants to be revisionist, but it doesn't provide enough real information, or compelling enough characters to make me care. Somewhere amidst the cliches is the story of a warrior who fought and killed for what was being taken from him, but it didn't make it to the screen in this version. In a case of an extremely misleading title, GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND doesn't do enough to make a real historical figure real.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 reservations: 5.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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