Something mediocre about this TV film

I just watched the DVD version which I bought for under $10 at a local store, purely out of curiosity. The film's tagline is "An epic as big as the land that shaped it". Yes, Texas is, geographically speaking, big, however, the only thing "epic" about his film is its three-hour running time. The rest of the film seem mediocre and underwelming.

After watching NINETY MINUTES of how the Anglo-Americans settled into Texas and warded off Comanche Indian raiders and how racial animosity grew between the Anglo settlers and the Hispanics (despite many Anglo-men taking Hispanic wives to get a larger land grant from Mexico), we finally see the Alamo battle scene. Sadly, it lasts only a few minutes and we see Davey Crockett, played by John Schneider and with long blonde hair and buckskins, for only a few moments. Jim Bowie, played by David Keith, features prominently during the first half of film before his death. Colonel William Travis of Alabama, with short brown beard, is depicted as a fierce libertarian ideologue who thinks that Mexico's less evolved political culture is an excuse for Texas (then known as the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas) to secede from the Mexican Republic even though most of Texas' inhabitants were quiet and docile Mestizo-Hispanics rather than loud and liberty-loving Anglo-Saxons. After the Alamo falls and its legendary defenders dead (with their bodies burned by the Mexican soldiers), we move on to see how Texan rebels from Goliad surrendered and then shot like fleeing rabbits on a field. Next comes the famous Battle of San Jacinto where Sam Houston's 800 man army attacked Santa Anna's much reduced force of 2000 men while the Mexicans were still sleeping in their tents (and Santa Anna still busy enjoying some Indian girls). This battle is shown mostly in SLOOOOOOOWWWWWW MOOOOTIOOONNNNN, and its one-sidedness reminds me of the Battle of Trenton, in the TV film "The Crossing", between George Washington's colonial rebels and the still sleeping Hessians. Santa Anna flees the field and is captured, while still shirtless, by a couple of young Texan rebels. He is brought before Sam Houston who is lying against a tree because of a gunshot to the leg by Benito Garza (played by the Benjamin Bratt), this film's most primary Hispanic character. After Texas wins defacto/unofficial independence from Mexico, the new fledging republic headed by Houston is penniless and plagued by Hispanic bandits shooting Anglo settlers. Garza, who served Santa Anna as a captain of lancers during the Texan Revolution, becomes an embittered bandit leader and is eventually hunted down and killed by a young Anglo man who is related to him by marriage and who grew up looking up to him. The last scene shows Sam Houston lowering the Texas flag for the last time as the USA flag is hoisted to symbolize Texas' annexation to the USA in 1846. (Of course, this stupid film does NOT further show how the USA flag is replaced by the CSA flag in 1861 contrary to Houston's wishes and life work).

Despite the DVD cover depicting the Alamo, this film is NOT about Bowie, Crockett or Travis. Its three main characters are the legendary Sam Houston, the fictional Benito Garza and the historical Stephen Austin, the so-called "Father of Texas". This film only redeeming value is bringing light and paying homage to Austin, the original leader of the Texan Revolution who made the call for armed revolt but whose fame is eclipsed by that of Houston, his second-in-command who was given the head command after Austin realized his own inadequacy as a general. Austin is the first major character to appear in the film when he was working in Texas in a mayor-like capacity for the Mexican government, registering the incoming Anglo settlers, and giving them the grants of land. Austin's mannered demeanour, soft-spokenness and humility is a contrast to the loud and booze-drinking Houston. Austin, not Houston, is the true hero of this film. Then there is the fictional character Benito Garza, the handsome Hispanic landowner and horse-rider whose sisters married two Anglo men and who taught a young Anglo man named Otto how to ride. Garza is full of typical Latin machismo and views the Anglo settlers as both close neighbours and unwanted trespassers. When the Anglo settlers go into rebellion, he decides to fight for Mexico and dons a red uniform and steel helmet as a captain of lancers. Both he and Austin have eyes for an Anglo settler widow named Mattie, but it is the more dashing Garza who wooes Mattie to bed while the reserved Austin restrains his romantic feelings. One of the most touching scenes is where Mattie and Austin are approached by Garza and two accompanying lancers, who then shoot their pistols at her when she raises her rifle to defend the rebel leader Austin. Both Graza, who couldn't stop his men from shooting, and Austin weep over Mattie's dead body. Another memorable scene is where the young Otto, as a Texas Ranger assigned to find and kill the bandit leader Garza, approaches Garza and has a rather reluctant stand-off with his old friend and riding teacher.

One would think that the character of Benito Garza was created to show the Mexican perspective in an ethnic-based revolution glorified by American and Texan history, but, like everything else in this mediocre film, the Garza character and Mexican viewpoint, while well-acted, are underwelming and underachieved and the whole movie comes off another piece of Anglo-American patriotic garbage that would displease any Mexican viewer whose country suffered from the Texan Revolution (and later the US-Mexican War), OR any Canadian viewer, like yours truly, would can relate to any Mexican, like Garza, who chooses loyalty over revolution. One realizes from the opening minutes that this film has an American bias when the narrator, the famous (and infamous) Charleton Heston, says that Texas was "OWNED BY Mexico" rather than "PART OF Mexico". If Texas was "owned" by Mexico, then one could say that California is currently "owned" by the USA after previously "owned" by Mexico. Texas, like California, is not simply some meaningless piece of land or some overseas colony of Mexico. Texas was part of the old Mexican Republic that won its independence from Spain many years before the 1836 Texas Declaration of Independence.

Despite the disgusting American bias, I will keep my DVD of this movie because the Mexican uniforms look accurate and convincing even though the battle scenes look low-budget and minimalist compared to John Wayne's "Alamo".

Watch the equally mediocre "One Man's Hero" (starring Tom Berenger) for a more Mexican (or anti-American) perspective on the US-Mexican War - another movie I keep for the Napoleonic-style Mexican uniforms.