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www.culturevulture.net - : There have been few as eagerly (and nervously) awaited adaptations in recent years as that of Cormac McCarthy’s 1992 novel All the Pretty Horses. McCarthy’s tactile, intensely visual prose always seems ready to erupt into cinema inside the mind; the master of the imaginary landscape, his tales are filled with incidents that are comic, psychedelic, or just plain harrowing. It’s only too bad that the first film taken from one of his books has become entangled in a dispute between director Billy Bob Thornton, who delivered a three-hour cut of the film, and the studio, which is responsible for the 112-minute version that’s seeing the light of day. What’s left on the screen suggests that Thornton’s cut may not have been any great shakes either, but anything would be better than what we’ve got now: a Boy’s Life adventure that hiccups from episode to episode, with most of McCarthy’s elegiac mysticism drained in the bloodletting. It’s too well-meaning to be a disgrace, but it is a failure. more...
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Critic Reviews
