Rating: 
Summary: Dissapointing...
Review: I actually rented this DVD to watch with my wife who keeps complaining about all the action films i rent that she HATES to watch. It seemed like a simple pleasant romantic drama, and i was looking forward for her thanks and appreciation about what a lovely movie i brought. To my dissapointment she grouchingly went to sleep quite near the ending. I could understand why, the movie is not a romantic drama or anything close, its not even about horses. The film starts telling the story of a teenager cowboy leaving the 1950's Texas for Mexico with his buddy. From then on its just a bunch of events with no focus or meaning. I cant remember any part of the movie I liked, although there are some dark moments in the movie that are emotionally hard to watch. Not an entertaining one, let it go.
Rating: 
Summary: Another film ruined by directorial stylizing
Review: "All the Pretty Horses" is a director-centric piece. It is more about Billy Bob Thornton's desire to show what a great director he is than it is about telling the story. As is frequently the case when a director puts his creativity in the foreground, the film is diminished. Unquestionably, the film has numerous beautiful location shots including lovely sunsets, stunning panoramas and splendid backdrops. The digital sound on the DVD is exceptionally good. However, it is also burdened by excessive jump cuts, annoying wide angle close ups that distort the actors' faces, and poor editing that jumps to a new scene before the previous scene is really finished. This is all done to stylize the film, but while Thornton is busy "styling", the story is being shredded into a passel of tediously disconnected fragments that loses the audience.Unlike "Sling Blade", where Thornton was focused on the character study and stayed locked on the storyline, here he meanders around, using characters and scenes as excuses to show off his technique. The romance, which is the strongest element of the story, is rushed and minimized. Cole's (Matt Damon) relationship with Rocha (Ruben Blades) is glossed over. Disjointed events whiz by. Before the viewer has an opportunity to become acclimated to one set of circumstances, the story takes a major shift somewhere else. There are gaps everywhere. When Thornton reaches the logical end of the film, the final scene between John Grady Cole and Alejandra (Penelope Cruz), rather than roll credits he wanders aimlessly for another twenty minutes sending Cole on a suicide mission back to Mexico to retrieve some horses. I understand that he was trying to condense a novel that had enough material for a miniseries, but taking four hours of material and condensing it into less than two hours by leaving gaps everywhere was not the answer. He should have tried focusing on certain elements in their entirety rather than including incomplete versions of every element. The effect of this discontinuity is to disengage the viewer, which is why there is so much criticism of this film being lovely but boring. I must agree with this sentiment. While I can appreciate the beauty of the photography, the story is rendered uninteresting by too much directorial meddling. The acting is very good. Matt Damon continues to show his versatility and strength as an actor with a solid performance in a different genre. Henry Thomas continues to prove that he is more than just the kid from "E.T. The Extraterrestrial" by giving another strong supporting presentation. Penelope Cruz also gives a compellingly emotional performance despite limited screen time. Lucas Black (also from "Sling Blade") makes another strong showing as Blevins. This film could have been much better. I rated it a 6/10. Despite some gorgeous photography, it loses the viewer with its disjointed editing and poor storytelling. It is worth seeing for the acting, but don't expect to be enthralled.
Rating:
Summary: Where is the restored director's cut of Billy Bob's film?
Review: Billy Bob Thornton's original version of "All the Pretty Horses" ran nearly four hours. The director's contract gave him final cut rights ONLY if the film came in under two hours. Watching the 112 minute version in the theater it was clear that this film has been hacked up and I eagerly awaited the Director's Cut DVD version that would restore Thornton's vision. Well, boys and girl, this DVD ain't that one. Again we are left with only hints of what might have been regarding the performances of Matt Damon, Henry Thomas and Lucas Black. Certainly Thornton wants us to see his original labor of love, so there must be more legal shenanigans going on behind the scene. The last time I was this disappointed by the DVD version of a film was lame director's cut version of "The Last of the Mohicans." Somebody wake me when they get this one right.
Rating: 
Summary: All the Pretty Horses
Review: I read All The Pretty Horses when it first came out, which was a long time before the film was produced, so my memory was painted in broad strokes, and films, being what they are, are also painted in broad strokes as adaptations. I was intensely satisfied with what I saw, and added the DVD to my permanant collection. As Ive read others opinions, I almost feel as though I wasnt suppose to like it, but I did. I bear no prejudice towards Matt Damon, or his acting ability, or his personality, and I thought his acting was splendid, as was Henry Thomas and really, the entire cast. It was understated, subtle, yet effective. As for fully developing the relationship with Alejandra...hell, I fall in love with Penelope Cruz every time I lay my eyes on her, whats so hard to believe that it was love at first sight? When I read the book, and I shared it with many many people, the first 100 pages was really hard to get through. Once past it, it became a love affair between my eyes and the words on the pages. Most people who commented to me had the same reaction. I thought it was a great film, and I was disappointed that the industry, and the public didnt like it as much as I did. I, too, would love to see a Directors Cut. Id buy it as well.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Worst.
Review: I love love stories... It seems like they throw it in toward the end of the movie and it really isn't about that at all. I would stay away from this one, i was dissappointed with it.
Rating:
Summary: the worst movie of the year, or at least the most boring.
Review: this movie absolutely blows,what was matt damon thinking,better yet what was billy bob thorton smoking.this movie will put you to sleep if you suffer from insomnia,i highly reccomend avoiding this film.
Rating:
Summary: Jump Cuts and Loose Ends
Review: "It's the most fun I've ever had working on a film," Matt Damon gushed in one of numerous interviews for director Billy Bob Thornton's western epic, an adaptation of the novel by Cormac McCarthy that originally hit bookstore shelves back in 1992. Sad to say, Mr. Damon, it wasn't so fun to WATCH Thornton's finished product. "All The Pretty Horses" is like trying to interpret someone's bad dream, all scattered images and unintelligible action thrown together in a two-hour video. It is obvious in the first 30 minutes of "ATPH" that integral parts of the film were cut to fill a specific time frame. Enormous amounts of footage that would've made the film more understandable and perhaps even more enjoyable ended up on the cutting room floor due to squabbles between Thornton and studio execs. From what would've been a potentially long film (almost four hours, to be exact) it was severely sliced down to a mere 116 minutes by the hacksaw editors at Miramax and the film suffers greatly because of it. The story is as follows: John Grady Cole (Damon) is a young man in late 1940's Texas who dreams of living the life of a prosperous rancher. He is determined to see and experience the old frontier before it disappears for good and makes a plan to travel to Mexico on horse with his good friend Lacy Rawlins (Thomas). On route, they meet tough-talking teen Jimmy Blevins, a young fugitive traversing the desert landscape on a stolen horse. He leaves the entourage only days later, dodging authorities for a second-theft of the same nature. Sans Blevins, John and Lacy cross the border and find work taming wild steeds for a man named Rocha, the most prestigious rancher in the area. Trouble brews when good ol' John falls for Rocha's beautiful daughter Alejandra (Cruz). Despite the tumult that their interracial relationship will cause, they begin seeing each other in secret and fall madly in love. About fifteen minutes after John and Alejandra are officially an item (it occurs so quickly - it's almost implausible), he and Lacy are detained by the local captain for murder and meet up with Blevins again when they are thrown into a filthy cell with him after their arrest. John and Lacy do time in a Mexican penitentiary (don't know how long; hard to tell) and Alejandra is completely out of the picture for the next hour. It's at about this point in the movie that people who have not read McCarthy's novel will be thinking, "What's the hell's going on here?" They have good reason to ask this question, for nothing makes sense because of Thornton's massive amount of missing footage (probably about an hour and a half's worth, if I carefully judge). What will really boggle people is the relationship between John and Alejandra. The dialogue between them is too insubstantial and vague; their wordless exchanges aren't nearly enough to justify their instantaneous love affair. In a matter of minutes, John and Alejandra go from perfect strangers to voracious paramours, a tangle of limbs beneath the sheets. You don't see any emotional growth to their relationship. Instead, it's...BAM - they're in love! Cruz's Alejandra is reticent one moment and in the next moment knocking on Damon's bedroom door every night for a romantic rendezvous. Even their love scenes are shown in jump cuts, each shot of them kissing and embracing only seconds long. Fade in, fade out - and that's the way it goes. There is no insight to gain for their sudden chemistry and their heartrending romance. Of course, this is due to the faulty editing that is so apparent throughout the whole movie. Many other defects stand out to the ardent observer. For example, Henry Thomas and Matt Damon look not the least bit rugged in their travails across the border. There is not a millimeter of stubble visible on their baby faces, even after several days in the rough and unforgiving terrain of Texas and Mexico with no hygiene whatsoever, not to mention an arduous stint in a filthy and fearsome penitentiary. They remain clean-shaven through it all. Not very realistic, if you ask me. It is hard for me to critique most of the performances in this film because of all the missing pieces, but I will say this: Lucas Black RULED the screen. Black was the high of the lows and a welcome spark to the extensive and languorous shots of the Mexican range. Cocksure and completely resolved to keep both his horse and gun to his minute list of possessions, Black's strong-headed Blevins is a spunky refresher when someone becomes bored with John and Lacy's dreamy trek across the border. Despite its greatest flaw, "All The Pretty Horses" still manages to come off as a striking and meaningful piece of work from a progressive director. I sincerely hope that within the next year, Thornton releases a director's cut version on DVD so that audiences predisposed to shunning this insufferable edition will get a chance to see Thornton's original and complete vision before the production axe came down with a loud and deadly crack.
Rating:
Summary: Keep this in mind
Review: Alright, I gotta make something clear. It's no big secret that this is a two-hour cut of a four-hour movie. Anyone out there who read the book knows that it is nearly impossible to cover the content of the novel in two hours of film. So Mr. Thornton did his best to do the film some justice. This was a big challenge in itself considering the style in which the book was written. Previously, with Sling Blade, he was Independant and working from his own script. Here he was working from an adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy novel by Ted Tally. He was so intent on delivering an adaptation that did the book justice that he delivered a four-cut. When the studios suggested that he cut the film down (four hours is just too much for the masses to handle) he cut it down to where it was, eventually, just a shade under two-hours. I went into the theater, knowing this, and thoroughly enjoyed the film. It had everything I could have expected from the novel and I was VERY impressed by the two leads. Lucas Black (Sling Blade) also turned in a great performance. Seeing this film in the theater was an experience in itself because the scenery is just, flat-out, breath-taking. Despite what some may say, the love story part of it was very convincing. It felt natural and real. The whole movie is very convincing and it deals with growing up in a realistic manner, in that, you can't always get what you want, and sometimes doing the RIGHT thing is what's most important. People who say that this film is boring are probably used to Micahael Bay type films (not that there's anything wrong with them) where everything is spelled out for them and the whole thing focuses on style rather than substance. If you are one of these people and you didn't like the film the first time, try going back into it with a more open mind, and you might find something more. Trust me folks, this is a must-see film. I give it a 10/10. I'm hoping that one of these days, we'll eventually see the orignal cut, but for now, I'm happy. Keep on going Strong Billy Bob. We Love YA.
Rating:
Summary: There's Nothing Pretty About These Horses
Review: The original cut of this movie ran 240 minutes. But when it arrived in theaters on December 25, 2000 (your annual Christmas turkey), director Billy Bob Thornton cut it to a mere 117 minutes. That's the version currently being released on VHS and DVD. Sadly, it's about as stimulating as a day-old taco. The love story - Matt Damon falls madly in love with the alluring Penelope Cruz - fizzles. Damon acts like he's never kissed a girl before. Cruz looks bored by her pretty boy co star. The remaining sub plots involving family honor, betrayal, prejudice and cowboys also don't add up to much. Throughout the film, it's obvious certain scenes are missing, which they are. In turn, it's hard to get fired up about a film that arrives with two hours of deleted footage. Damon tries hard to inject life into this directionless mess, but fails. This is one of the worst films of 2000. Avoid it at all costs.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful story!
Review: This story is excellent. What else can I say? I watched ittwice in the theater (I must admit the first time I was partiallydriven to watch because it was filmed in my hometown), and I can'twait to have the video. Every time I see it I know I will findanother message hiden inside it. Truely deep messages for thoselooking for more than just a way to occupy a few hours.
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