Average Rating: 4.9/10
Reviews Counted: 99
Fresh: 32 | Rotten: 67
This adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel comes off as rather flat and uninvolving. Scenes feel rushed and done in shorthand, and the romance between Damon and Cruz has no sparks.
Average Rating: 4.6/10
Critic Reviews: 33
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 25
This adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel comes off as rather flat and uninvolving. Scenes feel rushed and done in shorthand, and the romance between Damon and Cruz has no sparks.
liked it
Average Rating: 3/5
User Ratings: 11,255
Director Billy Bob Thornton explores coming of age in this Western based on Cormac McCarthy's prize-winning novel of the same name. John Grady Cole (Matt Damon) and Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas) are young Texan men who seek a more fulfilling life as cowboys in the slowly fading Old West, circa 1949. One night, the duo head for Mexico in hope of finding some adventure and employment, and along the way run into Blevins (Lucas Black), an even younger drifter who has supposedly stolen a horse from
Dec 25, 2000 Wide
May 8, 2001
$14.7M
Miramax
All Critics (114) | Top Critics (35) | Fresh (33) | Rotten (67) | DVD (12)
Damon is 30 and Cruz will soon be 27, and they look it. And there goes the drama.
McCarthy's novel employs the coming of age narrative in service of his sanguineous spiritual vision, and for the film to renounce that philosophy is to give up its soul and be rendered lifeless.
Lovely but disengaging, mysterious but uninvolving, physical but strangely remote.
Working from Ted Tally's casually artful script, director Billy Bob Thornton guides Matt Damon, Henry Thomas and Penelope Cruz to their most impressive performances in a major movie yet.
What is on screen is impressive, even with the sense of something missing.
Not a disaster as rumored to be, just a disappointing adaptation of a great novel. Thonrton fails to dramatize in visually or dramatically satisfying ways the hero's odyssey from innocence to experience, from childish game to acting with honor.
I'm a fan of all involved, but this is a really tough watch.
The movie that resulted from the studio's demand for cuts ... is a big-screen Cliff's Notes for the novel.
Despite a script which remains faithful to the sparse language of the novel, and some breathtaking cinematography, the whole production feels too lethargic.
Part elegy, part romance, and part myth, it's a sweeping paean to the lost West, a dreamy chronicling of the end of an age.
The result of what would appear to be a great deal of effort and some horribly misguided conviction is an extremely slow-moving train wreck.
An ok film overall. Great aesthetics but the narrative wasn't really shown too well. I'll have to read the book and find out if that's McCarthys fault or the makers of this film. It had hints of a summer romance film but didn't quite get there which is a shame since performances were good.
December 31, 2010Super Reviewer
I thought that this was a really good movie, despite alot of bad reviews. I say this even though I am not a Penelope Cruz fan, but I AM a Matt Damon fan...so this probably helped my opinion. I think that he did a fantastic job. I thought that this was going to be primarily a love story, but it was so much more than
October 14, 2010Super Reviewer
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