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All the Pretty Horses (2000)
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Reviews Counted:32
Fresh:8
Rotten:24
Average Rating:4.7/10
Consensus: 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.
Theatrical Release:Dec 25, 2000 Wide
Box Office: $14,713,716
Synopsis: Billy Bob Thornton's ALL THE PRETTY HORSES is about John Grady Cole (Matt Damon), a young rancher growing up just after WWII. After his mother sells the family ranch, John convinces his best... Billy Bob Thornton's ALL THE PRETTY HORSES is about John Grady Cole (Matt Damon), a young rancher growing up just after WWII. After his mother sells the family ranch, John convinces his best friend, Lacey Rawlins (Henry Thomas), to accompany him to Mexico, where ranching is still a big part of life. Along the way they meet Jimmy Blevins (Lucas Black), a winningly enthusiastic boy with a volatile nature. Eventually, John and Lacey end up on a huge ranch south of the border, where John falls for the wealthy rancher's daughter (Penélope Cruz). This leads to deadly trouble for the two young men, but John won't be dissuaded from pursuing his new love. Thornton has made a credible modern Western with this film, which gets strong performances from Damon, Cruz, Thomas, and, in a star-making turn, Black as the fiery Blevins. ALL THE PRETTY HORSES is at its best when focusing on the dusty details of the ranchers' hard existence. Barry Markowitz's cinematography and Ted Tally's script (based on Cormac McCarthy's much-loved novel) capture a sweet and melancholy flavor in depicting a way of life that seemed long since lost even while a hardy few were still living it. [More]
Starring: Matt Damon, Penélope Cruz, Henry Thomas, Lucas Black
Starring: Matt Damon, Penélope Cruz, Henry Thomas, Lucas Black, Ruben Blades, Robert Patrick, Bruce Dern
Director: Billy Bob Thornton
Director: Billy Bob Thornton
Screenwriter: Ted Tally
Studio: Miramax Films
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Reviews for All the Pretty Horses
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.
Whether you're familiar with the story or not, you'll have trouble feeling connected to it.
A string of gorgeous pictures whose visual impact doesn't nearly resonate with the potency of the book's.
A boy's adventure story that has mistaken itself for an epic, and it rattles around in its own ambitions like a child's head in a 10-gallon hat.
In an odd way Pretty Horses has been too faithful to the spirit of this somber, fatalistic, melancholy romance, too much a stubborn ode to stoicism, to light any emotional fires.
An elegiac, visually hypnotic film about love, honor, reverence for nature and the loss of tradition.
Matt Damon's earthy movie star performance is well worth seeing, but don't go in expecting a sustained sense of drama.
The weight of myth sits on nearly every frame of the movie like a 400-pound gorilla.
Latest News for All the Pretty Horses
September 13, 2007:
Viggo Mortensen to Walk The Road?
The film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer-winning, Oprah-certified novel, The Road, may have found its star. More...
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