All the Pretty Horses (2000)

reviewed by
Scott Renshaw


ALL THE PRETTY HORSES (Miramax) Starring: Matt Damon, Henry Thomas, Lucas Black, Penelope Cruz, Ruben Blades, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Miriam Colon. Screenplay: Ted Tally, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. Producers: Robert Salerno and Billy Bob Thornton. Director: Billy Bob Thornton. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (violence, adult themes, profanity) Running Time: 117 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

In Billy Bob Thornton's adaptation of the award-winning novel ALL THE PRETTY HORSES, two young Texans hit the trail for Mexico in 1949. And they meet up with another young Texan. And they get into some trouble with the law. And they go to work on a Mexican ranch. And one of them has some trouble with a woman. And they have some more trouble with the law. And then the same one of them has more trouble with the same woman. And then there's more trouble with the law. And then the movie ends.

Thornton and Miramax feuded for a year over the length of the film, with the director originally turning in a two-and-a-half hour cut before finally paring it down to under two hours. The resulting film is the best evidence that Thornton was right. ALL THE PRETTY HORSES is a film that wants to achieve an epic scope, but where plot points keep rolling by so quickly that there's no time for anything to resonate. It's a picturesque travelogue made for Short Attention Span Theatre.

The tale does begin in 1949, where a young man named John Grady Cole (Matt Damon) is at a crossroads. His mother is preparing to sell the family ranch, leaving John Grady adrift. He decides to look for work as a ranch hand in Mexico, joined on the journey by his best friend Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas). Along the way they hook up with a young runaway named Jimmy Blevins (Lucas Black), but separate again after one of the aforementioned run-ins with the law. Eventually, John Grady and Lacey land at the ranch of the wealthy Senor Rocha (Ruben Blades), where John Grady becomes fascinated with Rocha's daughter Alejandra (Penelope Cruz). And the complications progress from there.

Boy, do they ever. One of the most impressive elements of Cormac McCarthy's novel was how he was able to take such a plot-heavy story and make it feel rich and profound. Ted Tally's script retains the laconic cowboy dialogue, but the structure is a mess. The set-up concerning John Grady's fragmented family is dispatched in a few snippets of film and some voice-over, providing little foundation for the journey that is to come. In some earlier incarnation, Tally may have provided more fleshing out for the individual story elements, more gradual build-up for the drama. In the two hours ALL THE PRETTY HORSES now takes on screen, there's a sense in virtually every scene that someone was standing over the editor's shoulder, tapping his watch and muttering, "Come on, we gotta get to the skinny-dipping come on, we gotta get to the knife fight."

The really unfortunate part is that you can see a quality film screaming to get loose. Damon continues to impress as an actor, finding the search for stability and integrity in John Grady. Thomas is also solid, and Lucas Black grabs the screen in his smaller role as the high-strung Blevins. The film is strongest before the main characters arrive at the Rocha ranch, lingering on the relationships between the three travelers as they leave their familiar country. It's easy to understand what the film-makers are reaching for in their exploration of a changing country and the disappearance of a slower, simpler way of life. It's far more difficult to get caught up in those themes while trying to keep up with the latest dramatic development in John Grady's life.

Ordinarily, it might be worth commending ALL THE PRETTY HORSES for not arbitrarily turning the romantic sub-plot into the entire focus of the film (though it's still the entire focus of the ad campaign). This isn't really a story about John Grady doin' the hoochie-coochie with his little senorita, and while Penelope Cruz is quite scrumptious to look at, she doesn't exactly create a complex character. It's a bit of a surprise when the film moves along for another twenty minutes or so of loose-end-tying after the love story has been resolved, but in this case, it doesn't feel like a daring or unconventional choice. It simply feels like another example of a film that's almost never in the moment, so desperate to dash off that you suspect the whole crew was renting its equipment by the minute. So much for a celebration of a slower, simpler way of life.

     On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Mexican jumping scenes:  5.

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