This rendering is chillier than yesterday's coffee.
All the Pretty Horses (2000)
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Reviews Counted:98
Fresh:31
Rotten:67
Average Rating:4.8/10
Consensus: This adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel comes off as rather flat and uninvolving. Scenes feel rushed and done in shorthand, and the romance between Damon and Cruz has no sparks.
Runtime: 1 hr 57 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Billy Bob Thornton's ALL THE PRETTY HORSES is about John Grady Cole (Matt Damon), a young rancher growing up just after WWII. After his mother sells the family ranch, John convinces his best... Billy Bob Thornton's ALL THE PRETTY HORSES is about John Grady Cole (Matt Damon), a young rancher growing up just after WWII. After his mother sells the family ranch, John convinces his best friend, Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas), to accompany him to Mexico, where ranching is still a big part of life. Along the way they meet Jimmy Blevins (Lucas Black), a winningly enthusiastic boy with a volatile nature. Eventually, John and Lacey end up on a huge ranch south of the border, where John falls for the wealthy rancher's daughter (Penélope Cruz). This leads to deadly trouble for the two young men, but John won't be dissuaded from pursuing his new love. Thornton has made a credible modern Western with this film, which gets strong performances from Damon, Cruz, Thomas, and, in a star-making turn, Black as the fiery Blevins. ALL THE PRETTY HORSES is at its best when focusing on the dusty details of the ranchers' hard existence. Barry Markowitz's cinematography and Ted Tally's script (based on Cormac McCarthy's much-loved novel) capture a sweet and melancholy flavor in depicting a way of life that seemed long since lost even while a hardy few were still living it. [More]
Starring: Matt Damon, Penélope Cruz, Henry Thomas, Lucas Black
Starring: Matt Damon, Penélope Cruz, Henry Thomas, Lucas Black, Ruben Blades, Robert Patrick, Bruce Dern
Director: Billy Bob Thornton
Director: Billy Bob Thornton
Screenwriter: Ted Tally
Studio: Miramax Films
Reviews for All the Pretty Horses
Unfortunately, Thornton's love for its iconography doesn't quite bring it to life.
It's as if Thornton and scripter Ted Tally are so concerned with big themes and Old West mythology that they forget they've got to present a real live cowboy in order for any of it to work.
Comes close to evoking the book's haunting power, its comedy, wisdom and pain about childhoods passing.
Doesn't have much of an emotional, or even physical center, cursed as it is with a storyline that wanders as aimlessly as its characters.
To be a really good movie, All the Pretty Horses would have had to have been almost twice as long. The way it is, it leaves too much out.
Thornton can't quite transcend a script that's fraught with portent Hallmark aphorisms.
The story just doesn't have much shape to it, and crucial information about Cole and Alejandra seems to be missing.
It's likely to leave all but the most ardent fans of Matt Damon and novelist Cormac McCarthy shaking their heads in puzzlement -- if they don't nod off first.
This is the kind of movie that's best to see on a big screen, where the size of the sky and the colors of the land can do their work.
It's like a bus tour of McCarthy's West, with Thornton the tour guide quickly driving past every landmark before his lunch break.
Faced with a choice of blunt instruments with which to beat a good book into a bad movie, director Billy Bob Thornton chooses heavy, random, arty imagery and a leaden pace.
These cowboys have to ride, shoot and live between three-dot ellipses.
[Damon and Cruz's] onscreen chemistry would hardly warm a can of beans.
Latest News for All the Pretty Horses
September 13, 2007:
Viggo Mortensen to Walk The Road?
The film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer-winning, Oprah-certified novel, The Road, may have found its star. More...
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