ALL THE PRETTY HORSES review

I finally saw this film a couple of days ago. Saturday to be precise. The day started at an hour, far earlier than normal for me... I had an appointment with couple of hundred kids at a screening of my Saturday Morning Fun Club. So, with 2 hours of sleep under my eyelids, I crawled out of bed... got ready and went to the Alamo Drafthouse to introduce.... INFRAMAN!

I introduce the film, teach the kids to do the INFRAMAN salute/transformation thing, and got them all fired up for the movie, and then delighted in listening to the little tykes spaz out during INFRAMAN... It fired me up something fierce. There is literally nothing like watching a childhood favorite film with a room full of kids that are watching it exactly like you did 24 years before... Wow, 24 years ago... nearly a quarter of a century.

As I let that passage of time weigh upon my immortal soul, I grabbed some nice lunch with my father... came home to answer some correspondances and decide what movie to see...

I was exhausted, but Dad wanted to see a movie, so I figured... what the hay?!?!?!

I picked ALL THE PRETTY HORSES, a movie that has been in the can for quite some time awaiting release. A movie that Sony decided to basically throw its hands up over and let Miramax handle its release. They had a test screening of ALL THE PRETTY HORSES here in Austin back in like... early summer or so, and several AICN-ers and folks I know saw the film... Most of them were sort of lukewarm on the movie, and would never write a review as they didn't know what to say. This really ticked me off.

We get to the theater.... because of the Holidays there is a long long line of people, I decide to hit the lobby and use the credit card ticket machine, which apparently nobody knows exists, but is a splendid and wondrous invention worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.

I grab my seat... cover up with my coat, lean back... and as the lights dimmed, so did my eyelashes.... I can't recall a single trailer... those two hours of sleep just was not enough, I suppose... but I was out.

The first thing I remember is coming to and seeing Henry Thomas challenging this punk kid to shoot at his wallet as he throws it up in the air. Not knowing what I had missed, and being a bit ticked off at myself for dozing, I now had to challenge myself as to whether or not I watch.... however much was left of the film, or just pass on out and catch up on my much needed rest.

As I watched the results of the toss and gunshot, I began to get into the relationship between these three... Watching them get drunk on fermented cactus cider.... their drunken horseback riding... the legend of the boy's family and their history of lightning.... Next thing I know... I'm hooked. These characters were just too good to fall asleep on.

There is a simple good ol fashioned sense of decency and moral center to the film that feels a part of the time in which it is depicting... that stage point of the vanishing cowboy and the rough and tumble ranching life. Now, I have a bit of personal history (don't I always) when it comes to some of the motivations at work here.

There is a part of my life that not many of you know about, and even those that have known me for years often times get shocked when I talk about it. It's just something very un-Harry. I spent a good six years of my life living on the family ranch in North Texas... about 20 miles from the location used in Bogdonovich's THE LAST PICTURE SHOW. Small town ranching life. I'd wake up, milk the cows.... put the hay out, put water in the troughs.... feed the one square of alfalfa and 5 squares of hay to each of the 40 or so Quarterhorses we had. There was the plowing, the hay hauling, the fence repair, the stable cleaning, the rounding up the cattle via horseback, riding the fence line.... This was a completely... COMPLETELY different lifestyle for me.

As a result of this time period though, I met quite a few folks that were EXACTLY like Henry Thomas, Matt Damon and even the Lucas Black character. In Seymour, Texas there were the fellas that wanted nothing more than to just be cowboys for the rest of their lives. To wear the too tight jeans, to walk bow-legged... to tell tall tales about the time ol Minnie hollared like a stuck pig in a slaughter house... There was no question about downsizing or promotion... you just did what you always had and things would be as they always were.... and that's just fine by them. Breaking a new colt in... herding up strays... to have dirt so embedded into ya, that when you take a shower it's like pulling off a scab of well ridden life. The water soothes and refreshes... and that beer tastes like the sweetest nectar to ever go down the gullet in which it flows.

There was also a common decency... When Joe Bob dated Mary Sue... that was that, they was set for hitching... there was no cheating hearts... that was set in the tunes we played, but not in our minds. The ranch that I'm talking about has been in my family for over 140 years... it is everything that generations on my Mother's side of the family ever knew. The Ranch was to be your life.... that thing you became synonomous with... Well, I'm not Matt Damon's character... or Henry Thomas or Lucas Black's... Though my sister and I now own that Ranch, we lease it to those that do love and cherish that lifestyle... and that is enough.

Watching a film like ALL THE PRETTY HORSES... where life can be as simple and beautiful as watching a whole mess of horses running at breakneck speed against a wide open set of plains... well... I understand that, because that is all my mother wanted to be in her last years. She wanted to raise horses, run the ranch...

ALL THE PRETTY HORSES captures almost exactly the pentameter of the conversations I heard then... the look in their eyes... Hell, I can almost smell the dust. Now, to the story and relationships set within this universe of which I'm talking... well ALL THE PRETTY HORSES just hit me perfect.

Matt Damon is wandering with his best friend since childhood... times are changing and they wish to stay in the past... sensing that only amongst the Mexican Vaqueros will they find their true calling as the sort of Men they want to be a part of... they set off for Mexico... they come across Lucas Black, who is a squirrely kid, but seems tough and full of heart... there is some minor trouble, and by the time all is said and done... Damon and Henry Thomas are employed as the very type of men they always wished to be.... Breaking 12 mustangs in 4 days... tired beyond belief... worn to the bone... to exhausted for conversation, where every sentence ends with a chuckle. So real.

There is a love story... hell there is even a prison story here... a matter of fact, a whole helluvalot happens after the midway point of this flick, and ya know what? Billy Bob Thornton is one helluva storyteller. He doesn't short change us.... he doesn't make us all happy and pleased... He doesn't solve all this kids problems, no cowboy is ever complete. That's why he stays a cowboy. Neither here nor there... The more things change around them, the more they stay exactly where they are. I love this film... sure I romanticize it all, but folks... that's part of movie-going.

This movie woke me up, and kept me awake for hours... remembering stories and times I had spent... riding miles atop a horse I never apologized to.... Old John... If you like films like JUNIOR BONNER or even... in a way, STAND BY ME... this is that type of film. Enjoy.