All the Pretty Horses

Reviewed by:
Eric Alt

First of all, Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz are supposed to be, like, 16 years old in All the Pretty Horses. Yeah, we know. And that’s not even the worst blunder in this movie. Horses suffers from “Novel-To-Movie” syndrome: If you take a 300-page story and chop it down to two hours, a lot of what happens isn’t going to make a hell of a lot of sense. Horses is like a trailer for the book; it shows you a few of the novel’s famous scenes, but doesn’t really tell you anything about the story.

What we could figure out is that Damon plays a young cowboy who sets off to Mexico with the kid from E.T., falls in love with Cruz, and ends up in prison. That’s about all the explanation the movie offers, and that’s all we got out of it. You know it’s bad when characters have to tell each other what’s going on, ’cause the movie sure as hell isn’t covering any of it. Although Cruz is gorgeous to look at, her character’s about as well-drawn as the last few Peanuts strips Charles Schultz banged out. And Damon’s noble-guy schtick is running thin, but at least he’s not playing another troubled genius. Director Billy Bob Thornton hasn’t been behind the camera since Sling Blade, and it shows. Its two hours fizzles out to a vague and pointless ending that makes you think scanning the cutting room floor might have made for more substantial entertainment.

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