The All the Pretty Horses Store

All the Pretty Horses
by Mark Capitelli

Super

     I must say that I was very impressed with this film. The story was great, the acting was great, and it was satisfying. It has been a long time since I saw a film that made me feel the way this one did. Picking it apart afterward made it even better because I noticed subtleties that I had not given much notice to when watching the film. What made this film special to me was that it was so well done, and it was so much unlike anything that Hollywood has been producing lately. The only drawbacks for me were two short scenes of surrealism that I felt didn't belong in the film. Aside from that, I think it was a visually stunning masterpiece. My warning to you is that you see it when you're in the mood for a deep film. There is no action, no sex to speak of, and little humor (although there are a few laughs). It is also a little long, so be ready to sit and pay attention for a while.

All The Pretty Horses: A Rare, Great Film
by Michael Flanagan

HUGE

            All The Pretty Horses casts a spell on is audience unlike any recent Hollywood Studio Film.  It contains somewhat lengthy moments of silence, followed by carefully webbed dialogue stooped so heavily in reality that there are times when you forget you are watching a movie.  The silent moments are never wasted, for in those shots of the Mexican and Texan landscapes, full of nature and horses, director Billy Bob Thornton allows the audience to think (there’s a concept) about what the moment means to the characters.  The film’s allowances for moments of thought are its greatest strengths.

            The plot is deceptively simple.  Two best-friend cowboys, John Gradey Cole (Matt Damon) and Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas), ride out into Mexico when Cole’s ranch is sold after his father dies.  On the journey they meet Jimmy Blevins (played by Sling Blade’s Lucas Black), who ends up getting them into some traditional cowboy trouble.  The other source of trouble comes from Alejandra (Penelope Cruz), Cole’s love interest.  These characters combine in a plot that proves to be neither simple nor traditional.

            A “Hollywoodized” audience won’t like this film.  The clichéd plot points of most films cannot be found here; though you expect them on numerous occasions.  The expectation comes more from preconditioning than the film itself.  Stabbings, gunfights, and executions play out not as Lethal Weapon style heroics, but as slow, somber, lyrical moments.  When Rawlins is stabbed in prison, we watch in silence.  No dramatic music dictates the scene, no slow-motion shot of Cole mouthing “Nooooooooo” as he runs to his friend’s rescue.  Instead, Rawlins is filmed from behind, so that the only indication of the stabbing is in the horrible sounds of steel cutting flesh, and when Cole does run to him and holds him in his arms, we watch from a distance, and only very briefly.  Thornton knows we don’t need to see more.  The characterization and the established relationship have already told us what we need to know.  Character drives the film, entirely.  The love-story is told in very few words, but we know the depth of feeling, the importance of Alejandra to Cole, and vice-versa.  The romance is mostly off-screen, but implied through what we already know.  The silence of their love is far more powerful than any words could express.

            The film plays out in exactly this manner.  We know Cole, and we follow him on the journey, and through our knowledge of his character we gain knowledge of his world.  All The Pretty Horses is true film-storytelling at its best.  Through character and images we follow the circle, not through explanations and answered questions.  In the opening credit sequence, Thornton cuts from broad shots of the landscape to extreme-close-ups of horses.  The implication is clear: the horses are a part of nature, not animals grazing the land, but living parts of it.  The fact that Cole and Rawlins tame wild horses,  “through blood, sweat, and tears,” as the saying goes, is not a random characterization.  For on their journey Cole and Rawlins are also tamed, in their own natural and unnatural ways, through blood, sweat, and, as always, tears.

Quiet Passion and Silent Power: All the Pretty Horses
by Christian De Matteo

HUGE

One of my top ten films of the year is one that I went to see only at the request of a dear friend.  One of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met, she called me up and told me she’d just seen All the Pretty Horses and that it was exquisite.  Now, if you knew her, you'd know that this is not a word she throws around lightly at all, and yet, I still wasn’t thrilled to see it.  Perhaps I’d forgotten that she was the same person who’d gotten me to see The Shawshank Redemption, or perhaps I was just being my usual stubborn self.

Regardless, she shepherded Mike, Mark and I into the theater, and the movie started.  And then I was swept away.

As you are probably aware, the movie is just about gone from theaters and most critics unanimously despised it.  After I saw it, I began reading the criticisms, seeing it get trashed six ways to Saturday.  And I couldn’t understand why.

I’ve read that the movie had no passion:  It was ABOUT passion.

I’ve read that the movie crawled at a snail’s pace:  I was riveted.

I’ve read that the acting was terribly shallow:  I actually forgot Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting) was Matt Damon (something his acting has never accomplished for me before) and Penelope Cruz (Ramon Ramon) made me fall in love with her AND understand her challenges.  Bruce Dern was fantastic as the judge and Robert Patrick showed why many consider him under-rated in his few minute part.

I’ve also read that the story was shallow, and it is this that I find the most absurd.  Billy Bob Thornton’s (Sling Blade) directing and Ted Tally’s (The Silence of the Lambs) script capture the spirit of youth leaving youth perfectly.  The movie is a true hard-knocks coming-of-age story about a boy learning what it means to be a man and still maintaining that bit of innocence required for true morality and goodness, maintaining the ability to judge oneself apart from immediate stimuli.  The film is about a young man finding out just what turns one’s life can take and just what he might be required to do in it, and about him learning to make decisions within his belief structure, even when the situation is outside of it.

On top of all that, it’s about being able forgive yourself, when you stray as all humans do.

Only the various textures of the cinematography rival the movie’s textured characters.  Each character is an individual unto himself, one that could never be confused with any of the others in the film.  You know that no two characters would make the exact same decisions in the exact situation, but you do understand what each would be making his decisions out of.

On top of everything else, the movie is realistic in a way few movies are now.  Avoiding Hollywood formulas and standards the events don’t always turn in the way you want them to but they do turn in a way that is much more in keeping with humanity and reality. 

Romeo and Juliet this is not, but just as powerful it is.

All the Pretty Horses is undeniably one of the best movies of 2000.

National Board of Review: Best Screenplay

Trivia: IMdb

Did you notice the logo at the beginning of this film?  It's the Columbia Pictures logo that they used in 1949; the date in which the film is set.

When interviewed, Matt Damon said that out of all the films he has done, this is his favorite.  Now THAT'S a plug!!!

The movie was originally over three hours long.  The studio asked Billy Bob Thornton to cut it down.  The bickering lasted almost a year, with Thornton slowly cutting piece by piece until the studio was happy.  You’ll have to wait for the DVD to see why Robert Patrick and Sam Shepherd were in the opening credits and yet had less than a minute of screen time!

 In a rare move for the film industry, the score was composed by 3 people:  Daniel Lanois, Kristin Wilkinson, and country music singer Marty Stuart!

 For all you readers:  The novel by Cormac McCarthy is the first part of The Border Trilogy, a series of novels about life on the Texas-Mexico border.  The books, in order, are All The Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain.  The last two aren’t necessarily sequels.  The Crossing is about an entirely different character, but has similar themes and features characters from the first novel.  Cities of the Plain combines characters from both books, including John Grady Cole, Matt Damon’s character from Horses.  So, as the after school specials used to say, “If you’d like more information on . . .”