TEX-MEX SLEEPFEST

Reviewed - The Alamo: Who exactly is this film for? The latest retelling of the story of the small band of patriots who died defending a Texan mission against the onslaught of a mighty Mexican army is not quite grownup enough to appeal to history junkies and is far, far too dull to qualify as a proper action film.

Who exactly the 42 people who saw it on its US release were remains a mystery. Billy Bob Thornton’s ex-wives, perhaps.

Despite clocking in at a painfully tedious 137 minutes, The Alamo might, paradoxically, be a little more bearable if it were a little longer. Whole subplots seem to have gone missing and certain characters – most notably the Mexican defender Juan Seguin (Jordi Mollà) – appear and disappear with inexplicable randomness.

As anybody odd enough to be a fan of John Wayne’s 1960 cold war version will recall, the story (myth?) focuses on the relationship between three of the Texan leaders in the 1836 War of Independence: gritty Jim Bowie (Jason Patric), existentially troubled William Travis (Patrick Wilson) and gruffly rugged Davy Crockett (Thornton).

Only Thornton, who vies with Emilio Echevarría’s terrifically oily General Santa Ana for the dubious honour of being best thing in the film, manages to make anything of the flat, mechanical dialogue. Billy Bob, like the cunning politician Congressman Crockett must surely have been, is skilled at the art of concealing intelligence behind layers of cornball rhetoric. There is something of Bill Clinton in his performance.

Sadly, The Alamo has little else to recommend it. We appear to be looking at a film crushed by the decisions of outreach committees and policy forums: let’s have something about the African Americans; let’s have a little about the Texan patriots of Mexican origin; make sure the violence is not too gross for younger teenagers; hang on a minute, we’ve neglected to include any female characters.

Forget this Alamo.