La critique de James Berardinelli (1)
If the task of resurrecting the Western is up to All the Pretty Horses, that most uniquely American of genres will remain buried on Boot Hill.
This epic tale of love, betrayal, and horse stealing in the not-so-old West (it's actually set mostly in Mexico around the middle of the 20th century) has plenty to offer in the area of plot, but is disappointingly lean on characterization. Director Billy Bob Thornton (working from a script by Ted Tally which, in turn, is based upon Cormac McCarthy's novel) is so intent upon getting his characters from Point A to Point B (with three or four detours in between) that he loses sight of the need to develop them into more than convenient mannequins to be pushed around by the ebb and flow of the storyline.
Part of the problem with All the Pretty Horses relates to its length and the degree to which material had to be trimmed to reach Miramax's goal of a running time not exceeding two hours. According to Thornton, his original cut was about four hours long, meaning that more than half of the footage had to be excised. This would explain why parts of All the Pretty Horses feel like they were put together by the same team responsible for the truncated version of The Magnificent Ambersons. In fact, considering the magnitude of the editing, it's somewhat amazing that the theatrical release of All the Pretty Horses is coherent.
