Cormac McCarthy's 1992 novel All the Pretty Horses was both a best-seller and a critical hit in its elegiac evocation of the classic American West, albeit in the mid-twentieth century. Although the two novels that followed were marginally less strong (The Crossing features large slabs of Spanish dialogue, putting realism ahead of readability, and Cities of the Plain, though much more accessible, feels comparatively slight), taken as a whole McCarthy's Border Trilogy is a singular achievement of modern American literature.
There are two main problems with All the Pretty Horses, the film. The first is that, on the basis of the two-hour cut now on release, director Billy Bob Thornton didn't know how to make it. There is no doubt that Thornton is in love with the material, just like hundreds of thousands of other readers. Unlike them, however, Thornton is a Hollywood player who has access to multi-million dollar budgets. Sadly this alone does not qualify him as a film-maker.
Thornton is Hollywood's idea of a Renaissance Man - he is a mediocre actor, writer, director, singer. You name it, he does it not terribly well. (I may be forced to revise my opinion, at least of his acting, as advance word of his performance in the new Coen brothers film is very strong.) I have yet to see a film with which he has been involved that hasn't either been breathtakingly over-rated (Sling Blade, A Simple Plan) or just plain bad to begin with (Armageddon). Apparently Thornton's first, preferred cut of All the Pretty Horses was getting on for four hours long, but this is one Director's Cut I won't be waiting for. There is little in the released version to suggest that the extra two hours would re-instate McCarthy's lyricism, stripped from this strangely literal, pedestrian movie, but be yet another 120 minutes of admittedly tremendous scenery and dull encounters between "romantic" leads Penelope Cruz and Matt Damon.
Damon is the other major problem. He may be technically not without gifts, but he is unbearably bland and unconvincing as both a passionate suitor and experienced rancher who can spot a great horse just by looking. Crossing the Rio Grande to Mexico in search of youthful excitement, he surely has the whitest teeth of any gringo around.
This was Damon's third box-office disappointment on the bounce after The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000) and The Talented Mr Ripley (1999). It's to be hoped that Hollywood's moneymen wake-up to this before long and start offering his parts to Damon's co-star here, Henry Thomas. E.T.'s child star has grown into a gritty, charismatic performer and the film perceptibly loses whatever momentum it has when he's off-screen.
All concerned clearly assumed that All the Pretty Horses would be an award-garlanded prestige project and this alone, it appears, was enough for it to be green-lit, despite chronic miscasting both in front of and behind the camera. The saddest part is that nobody who sees this, perhaps unwittingly buying a ticket in confusion amongst the plethora of Penelope Cruz films 'coincidentally' on release at the moment, will feel any urge whatsoever to read the novel.
Reviewed by John Atkinson
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