All The Pretty Horses/Return To Me

Now, I never read the book that All The Pretty Horses was based on, but I hear that it’s much better than the movie in so many different ways. But more on that later.

This flick is about John Grady Cole (Matt Damon), a teenager (?!) who travels to Mexico with his best friend Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas) because his grandfather’s ranch is about to be sold by his mother. Along the way they meet up with Jimmy Blevins (Lucas Black from Sling Blade, The X-Files movie and Crazy In Alabama), a kid who has someone after him, but it’s not because he stole his horse. (Mmm-hmm.)

The three form a friendship of convenience (which becomes a bit more) and then get separated because Jimmy has to steal his horse back from a Mexican rancher.

John and Lacey end up at another rancher who takes them in and learns to trust these two American boys who came out of nowhere. John really gets a break because he knows a lot about horses and helps the rancher choose mares for his stallion.

Then John meets Alejandra (Penelope Cruz), the rancher’s daughter. That’s when all hell breaks loose.

I love Westerns. All kinds of Westerns. Mainly the ones about a lone desperado (or two) who does something to change the tides of time (True Grit, Lonesome Dove, just about any Clint Eastwood Western) or the coming of age type Western (Red River, True Grit, Dead Man’s Walk). Or even a small group of people obsessively after one goal (The Wild Bunch, The Searchers). Never been one for the cavalry Western, though.

So this movie seems like it would be right up my alley, right? It’s a coming of age Western about two boys (sort of) who don’t really want trouble, but it comes riding up to them with either a stolen horse or breasts.

The problem is that I never really care about any of the danger that they’re in. All three of the guys do a great job, so it’s not their fault. But something seems to have been lost in the script. I can’t believe that Ted Tally (Silence Of The Lambs) wrote something like this. Then I look at some of his other stuff. The emotionally detached Before And After. The ludicrous The Juror. (Ok. You caught me. I haven’t seen that one, but have you ever run into anyone who liked it?) Maybe he would lose something in translating a book to the screen. Maybe Silence was a fluke.

And, as good as the cast was, I didn’t see much chemistry with Matt and Penelope. Their forbidden love affair just didn’t “heat up the screen” like it probably should have. She’s beautiful (although, in this one she kept reminding me of Courtney Cox-Arquette) and I was glad to see her in a big “prestige picture” like this, but she didn’t really have much to do. She just kind of drifted in and out of scenes, had sex with Cole and then left just as quickly. Not a very big part of the story at all. And, in fact, of all of the warnings that Cole gets to stay away from her, not one comes from her father. Apparently he’s too much of a pussy to actually talk to the kid himself. He has his sister do all of the talking. Huh? I never got the impression that the guy trusted Cole with any more than his horses. A man in his position would definitely come at this kid with both arms swinging. Especially an old style Mexican man in his position.

Billy Bob Thornton directed a near masterpiece with his last movie, Sling Blade. It was an awesome slice of life from the poorer side of the Deep South. And art film without being an Art Film.

This time out, however, he tries for a little more. He keeps the Art reigns in for the most part, but when he does stretch out too much he goes way out into annoying territory. Cole at one point has a dream where he asks a dead character what it’s like to be dead. Fine. Good. I like that. But only show it once. And don’t cut to a shot of a bunch of prisoners singing “Red River Valley” in Spanish. Pointless. And don’t EVER have a bit player show the emotions of a main character as stupidly as Billy Bob does here. He has an old man who is just standing there watching Cole as he calls Alejandra. Suddenly the old man starts clapping and dancing. Cut to a shot of John’s face. Cut back to the old man standing completely still with the sound of him dancing still going.

Freakin’ annoying. Pretentious. Not to mention totally stupid.

As much as I’m putting this movie down, it wasn’t a totally bad movie. I just expected so much more…and it’s more fun to point out its shortcomings. But the acting was great and the cinematography by Barry Markowitz (Sling Blade and The Apostle) was very good. He knows exactly how to make Mexico look like the most beautiful place on Earth. (Of course it helped that he was using New Mexico and San Antonio instead.)

I guess I was looking for a movie to bring the Western back. And, even though this takes place a while after the Cowboy era was really over (I’m putting in about the 30s), I was really hoping that this would be that movie.

It’s not going to be. Maybe Billy Bob’s 240 minute cut would actually make us care for some of these people a little bit more.

Keep your eyes open for extremely small roles by Robert Patrick, Sam Shepherd and Bruce Dern.

Now, if you want chemistry, check out Return To Me. (Of course, I made a C in chemistry, so I could be totally wrong here. Maybe that’s why I’m single.) It’s a very cliched and stereotypical romantic comedy with a near-tragic twist, but it’s fun in its own manipulative way. Bob Rueland (David Duchovny) is a devoted husband who would do anything for his wife (Joely Richardson) including build a new shelter for the apes that she works with at the zoo with his own money. (Apparently he’s a multi-millionaire architect. The man spends money like he pulls it out of the toilet everyday…erm. Don’t ask.)

Meanwhile, on the other side of town (I guess) Grace Briggs (Minnie Driver) has a deadly heart condition. If she doesn’t get a transplant soon she’ll die.

Enter fate. (Read: the writers.) Bob’s wife dies in a horrible car accident that is (thankfully) not shown and Grace gets her heart.

A year later Bob has turned into a total asshole and his best friend, Charlie (David Alan Grier), is just trying to get him hooked up. He takes him out on a double date with a woman who isn’t in the slightest bit attractive or charming (except for her breasts). They go to O’Reilly’s Italian Restaurant (this, of course, is a the root of quite a few gags with dishes like ravioli with a side of cabbage) where Grace works for her grandfather, Marty (Carroll O’Connor), as a waitress. There are instant sparks.

Basically it’s one big “What if…” statement. Something that would never really happen except in cheesy romantic comedies. (The most depressing bit of cheesiness in this one is how Bob gets to go back to the restaurant. He accidentally leaves his cell phone. Fine. Sounds plausible. But he leaves it at the bar three feet from where he’s getting his coat. He had the phone in his pocket when he was at the table. So we’re to believe that, instead of putting it back in his pocket where he usually keeps it, he put it on the bar while he got his coat? No.)

The problem with this movie is that director/writer Bonnie Hunt, who is great with the kind of role that she wrote for herself, knew that her two romantic lead characters weren’t the strongest part of the movie. Instead of rewriting them to be stronger, she threw lots of scenes with the other, better, characters in there.

First off there’s the old men. Carroll O’Connor and Robert Loggia head up a cast of four best friends who bicker over who the best dead singers are and who the would be on a baseball dream team. Most of the arguments center around whether Ireland or Italy are better sources for these kinds of people. There’s some funny stuff floating around here. But I would have to disagree with their conclusion that Dean Martin is the greatest dead male singer. He was great, but that’s a bit like saying that Mark Magwire is the best baseball player who ever lived. One word for these guys: Frank. I rest my case.

The other really cool characters are Grace’s best friend and her husband (Bonnie Hunt and James Belushi). These two act like a real married couple. Maybe he’s a bit harsh with the kids sometimes (and they have a LOT of kids), but I never thought that he was TOO harsh. It seemed to be more like exasperated fun than anything else. And who better to play a “best friend couple” than Bonnie and James, two people who have made their careers on playing the smartass best friend types. And we finally see that, yes, James is John’s brother. He does a back flip from a laying down position that rivaled anything that his brother ever did. Maybe not as funny, but still pretty amazing that a guy that big could do something like that.

So, no, this wasn’t a great movie (very manipulative and a little derivative), but it was better than expected. Especially the supporting characters.

And check this little bit of useless trivia. Duchovny, who the Marx Brothers Mailing List has often thought would make a good Zeppo, plays Bob Rueland. Zeppo play Bob Rolland in Duck Soup. Coincidence? I wonder.