As bargains go, this is a good one. Buying Geronimo: An American Legend and All the Pretty Horses as a two-pack is a good value, especially if you are partial to Westerns. As Westerns go, both movies show a different side of the historical equation. All the Pretty Horses is a film rendering of author Cormac McCarthy's novel by the same name. Geronimo: An American Legend purports to be history, but this account is fictionalized, or "dramatized" as its creator might prefer. Horses doesn't feature the cowboy vs. indian drama much at all, focusing more on a story of doomed love and man's potential for violence. Damon and Penelope Cruz manage to brush against each other without actually creating any sparks, which removes the linchpin of the story's drive. Billy Bob Thornton -- yes, that one -- directs, also to the detriment of Horses. The impression one has is of Thornton standing near the camera with a playbook of favorite scenes from famous pictures. The stunning landscape is denuded by the search for artsy and technically impressive shots... rarely does the screen lock and hold on any element for very long. The story has plenty of passion and tension, but the treatment here barely preserves these qualities. Certainly, this movie doesn't add anything to the book, but fans of McCarthy's work will appreciate the effort.
The irony is that Geronimo, as a work that wears the cloak of historical authenticity, feels more like good fiction than Horses. It must be the level of drama and action in Geronimo, compared to the much more measured and sedate Horses. Geronimo is like "Good Will Hunting Indians" in the grand tradition of shooting, spitting Westerns. The cast also helps to create some push on-screen with veterans like Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall alongside newcomers like Jason Patric and Matt Damon. Rumor has it (imdb.com) that Jason Patric beat Patrick Swayze and Alec Baldwin to the main role, and thank your lucky stars he did. Patric plays an out-of-place cowboy who is a bit of a righteous crusader, and conveys the same kind of quiet toughness that I still remember him for in The Lost Boys which only predated Geronimo by five or six years. The actor who plays Geronimo, Wes Studi, stands out in my mind's eye from his role in The Last Mohican which came out just a year before Geronimo. Studi carries what amounts to a lead role well, and the problems with Geronimo come when one tries to define the lead in this big, talented cast. The camera and director approached the story with a steady vision, but every actor plays as if the movie were named after him. If one were to rank the two movies for "chick flick" appeal, Horses would be a clear winner since the only female characters in Geronimo are screaming women running from White Eye raiding parties.
If Westerns you crave, find them here you will. There was a time when the expectations we brought to this genre would have made either of these a decent showing. I'm sure there were other defining moments, but another movie that landed at about the same time as Geronimo was Unforgiven. To me, the ante was ever after upped for drama in a western setting. Looking at a five year period around Geronimo we got movies like Tombstone and Young Guns -- it was a virtual Golden Age for Westerns... Which is a long way of saying that Billy Bob had no good excuse for making a sub-par version of McCarthy's great book all the way out in the year 2000. If you're a fan of Westerns, buy this bargain set and draw your own conclusions. There's some good entertainment, if you can find your way around some over-directing and over-acting.
