Arguably Robert Redford's most inchoate work, The Milagro Beanfield War has plenty of beautiful moments, but they don't quite add up to a worthwhile whole.
Arguably Robert Redford's most inchoate work, The Milagro Beanfield War has plenty of beautiful moments, but they don't quite add up to a worthwhile whole.
It's advisable to know from the beginning of The Milagro Beanfield War that "milagro" is the Spanish word for "miracle." The scene is a rundown Hispanic community in New Mexico, bordering a posh housing development. In full control of the local water rights, the powers-that-be are secure in the belief that they'll be able to expand their development without resistance from the locals. No one can foresee that impoverished farmer Joe Mondragon (Chick Vennera), during a burst of frustrated rage,
will accidentally open a heretofore hidden sluice, thereby providing free water for his bean field. At first, the locals are against Mondragon's "insurrection," reasoning that the new housing development will provide jobs. But with the help of Charlie Bloom (John Heard), a burned-out '60s activist who now runs the community newspaper, Mondragon becomes the hero of the hour, the spiritual leader of an ever-growing "no development" movement. The evil land developers send their minions to intimidate or coerce Mondragon; each time, however, he is seemingly protected from harm by divine intervention. When Mondragon is forced to shoot a trespasser on his land, it looks as though his luck has run out. Chased into the hills by private detective Kyril Montana (Christopher Walken), Mondragon is once more rescued in the nick of time by what appears to be a miracle. And there are more wonders to behold before fade-out time!Whimsical, yes, but thanks to its hand-picked ensemble cast (including Sonia Braga, Rubén Blades, James Gammon, Daniel Stern, Freddy Fender, M. Emmet Walsh, and Melanie Griffith) the film remains totally credible throughout. Adapted by John Nichols and David Ward from Nichols' own novel, The Milagro Beanfield War may be the most likeable "liberal-tract" film of the 1980s. Robert Redford's appropriately Capraesque direction is matched by Dave Grusin's vibrant Oscar-winning musical score. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
The film is very big on sunsets and sunrises. It also has a touristy appreciation for all manner of things folkloric. What it doesn't have is dramatic coherence or backbone.
If Redford had left out a few of the waffling, undecided characters and drawn his dramatic lines more strongly, the film might have been a lot more powerful.
Redford's film sustains a slow mood of simpatico amiability and photographs the landscape with moony or golden washes that are perhaps hard to dislike, but is slain by its adherence to an outdated populist mythology.
Great movie by Robert Redford, Sonia Braga is phenomenal!
January 12, 2008
Leo L
Super Reviewer
Redford does a good job as director presenting a cinematic frame for the New Mexico impoverished countryside that is the setting for this story. But even at two-hours, I remaoined unsold as to the reason that we have this conflict in the first place. Chick Vennera plays Joe as a hapless family man who gets frustrated
at his lack of opportunity at working for the new resort/golf development in his hometown. He turns on the water to a beanfield in his yard. Water that baned from local irrigation.At this point, entreprenuers become moustache-twirling bad guys. They fear political backlash of just arresting him and then try to find other ways to fuck with Joe's day to get him to back down. This in turn, rallies the local community against the development. Maybe I just don't have that same sense of "home"- but everyone ignores the value that the money will bring them and focuses on the increased taxes that will surely come. These are impoverished people anyway. They're not being exploited, maybe just displaced. And probably compensated for that displacement.In the end, the good guys are all sporting halos and the bad guys are comically evil. Even Walken is a caricature. It makes the story less believable. And I don't know what good the ghost brings to the proceedings at all.
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