All The Pretty Horses

ALL THE PRETTY HORSES

Rating: B

To paraphrase an old saying, life must be lived forward but can only be understood in reverse. Well, here's a movie which only makes sense when the plot has concluded and you look back on the events and put them in perspective.

In many ways, All the Pretty Horses is a throwback to the old westerns. Not in the sense of gunfights on main street at twelve o'clock high, but in the sense of Big Skies and men seeking the freedom of the open prairie. Matt Damon plays the son of a cattle rancher in 1949 Texas. Cattle herding and bronco busting are the only life he's ever known, and boy does he love his work. When his mother sells the ranch out from under him, he and best friend Henry Thomas reluctantly head south of the Rio Grande for the greener pastures of Mexico.

What follows is a somewhat episodic trail of events as various characters enter and exit Damon's life during his trek south of the border. As noted, many of the scenes initially seem a bit haphazard, as if director Billy Bob Thornton (yes, that Billy Bob Thornton) was making things up as he went along. This is due largely to the unconventional construction of the narrative. Most movies quickly lay down an initial premise and spend the rest of the film developing and resolving the conflict within that premise. Here, the narrative slowly unfolds, and the conflict takes shape as the movie progresses. Most viewers will be at a loss to explain what the movie is "about" until the end credits start to roll, and as a result many may dismiss the plot as being "too slow." To each his own.

Even if you accept the film's indeliberate pacing (which I did), the story still has its flaws. Major repercussions surround Damon's love affair with the daughter (Penélope Cruz) of a Mexican cattle baron who hires him. Never mind that Damon forgets the first law of office romance ("Don't shit where you eat"), the real problem is that the romance is never particularly believable. We're asked to just accept that Damon and Cruz fall madly head-over-heels in love, without being presented with any scenes between them which help us to identify with their feelings. The result is their affair just seems tacked onto the script to make other events happen. The other problem is that many of the events which occur throughout the film aren't particularly interesting to watch. They ultimately combine to form a cohesive story, but not one I'd really be interested in watching a second time. It's a classic example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.

Damon turns in another excellent performance here, as do many of his supporting actors, including Bruce Dern as a Texas judge. Thornton's turn at the helm, although marred occasionally by the distracting affectations typical of many new directors, is fresh and confident enough to look promising. Also noteworthy is the acting of Julio Oscar Mechoso, who plays a Mexican police captain whose concept of justice is disturbingly corrupted. In one scene he delivers a threatening monologue staring into the camera, effectively placing us in Matt Damon's shoes. Acting directly to the camera is generally difficult, but Mechoso succeeds in pulling the scene off in convincing fashion. The end result is rather disarming.