because you can't have too much entertainment... December 2000

Billy Bob: Lost in the Wilderness
The Gift Dir: Sam Raimi Written by: Billy Bob Thornton
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Keanu Reeves, Giovanni Ribisi, Katie Holmes & Greg Kinnear
All The Pretty Horses Dir: Billy Bob Thornton Starring: Matt Damon, Henry Thomas, Lucas Black & Penelope Cru

(How Billy Bob got lost in Louisiana and Mexico)

Billy Bob Thornton has been a busy boy lately: Losing more weight than Calista Flockhart, marrying amazon Angelina Jolie, battling it out with the Weinstein brothers, and delivering two films to audiences worldwide within a month of each other. Billy Bob directed the western All the Pretty Horses and wrote the gothic thriller the Gift both playing (though not for long) at theaters near you. Both of these films can be aptly and politely described as films that 'don't really work'. But the truth is less polite and it's that both films are a total mess.

All the Pretty Horses is a tricky film to critique. I would certainly like to blame the whole disaster on Miramax films. My distaste for their output grows each year. The pre-release press about the ever dwindling running time of this film has been largely chalked up to the company's bullying and interference. The length is definitely a problem. The movie is excruciatingly slow but it's not for lack of plot. The problem when you trim and trim and trim a story is that you end up with a skeleton and no flesh for the audience to grab a hold of. (And I'm not talking about Billy Bob's own dwindling frame) If you aren't drawn into the story... if there's no emotional connection to the characters (which usually takes time to build) than you aren't going to care. If you don't care about the story even a short film can feel like it's 5 hours long.

But sadly I cannot complete absolve Billy Bob Thornton of crimes here. As the auteur (or author) of the film he must accept some responsibility. While the choppy stop-and-go of the film can certainly be blamed on the tyranny of Miramax, it's not the film's only flaw. It's difficult to say how good the adapted script is because the editing may account for a portion of the blame, but it feels like Cliff Notes - a common problem for screen adaptations and one that should immediately render the script non-award worthy. I continue to be shocked by the screenplay's Oscar buzz. The cinematography, though beautiful, doesn't really contribute to the narrative drive in the way it needed to in order to successfully adapt Cormac McCarthy's spiritual prose. The performances are reasonably good but not uniformly successful. I love Matt Damon's work and I think he's very good in the film...but the other performances fall sort of flat for me -particularly the lovely Penelope Cruz. I guess she just didn't have this role in her. As for Billy Bob, who should be holding this all together... it doesn't gel. And even directorial flourishes like the tapdancing stablehand feel borrowed. Calling David Lynch! All the Pretty Horses could have been safely retitled... All the Pitfalls of Pretty Novels.

The Gift , following closely on the heels of Horses, is Billy Bob's second year- end treat and a gift you might want to return. Save your receipts! The Gift tells the story of swamp psychic Annie Wilson and her travails trying to help solve the murder of the town slut. The film starts off fairly well. You meet Annie and her children (they're all in mourning from her husband's death) and her troubled clients. Her most frequent customer is last year's Oscar winner Hilary Swank. Hilary finds herself squarely back in abusive redneck territory...she's like the new Juliette Lewis only without as much talent. Hilary sports the ugliest ''mullett' you ever did see and speaks in a truly bizarre high pitched little girl voice. "I'm glad that girls dead" has got to be one of the wierdest line readings I've ever heard. Giovanni Ribisi is also in town, desperately trying to upstage Hilary's wierdness, and also pining for Annie and her psychic empathy. The less said about his performance the better. Since this is the type of movie that likes to overload on starpower to disguise its B material... Keanu Reeves, Greg Kinnear & Katie Holmes (quite good here in a tiny role) are also on hand to throw curve balls Annie's way.

Annie is in demand because she can read cards, advise you on your future, and show gallons of empathy. Her visions, however, do not come on demand but usually at the drop of a hat (...er.. pencil in this case) or at 1:30 AM precisely, in the midst of horrifically art directed dreams. At the beginning of the film it's a great treat to see Cate the great using her expressive eyes and chameleonic talents to embody a semi-awkward backwater psychic. Sadly, the pleasure wears off as the film drags on.

The further you go into the foggy dampness of The Gift the clearer the flaw becomes. BAD SCRIPT! You won't have to be psychic to see that. Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson have come up with a doozy of a screenplay. The material itself won't give. It won't work with the director. It trips up most of the actors. It throws numerous red herrings in just for the hell of it and wastes terrific amounts of time on subplots that don't go anywhere. Ridiculously it tries desperately to keep you guessing, although the identity of the murderer is easy to see. It makes very little sense. The entire script is simultaneously undercooked and overheated. Worst of all, in a movie filled to the brim with "talent" and showy eccentric characters it's not very entertaining and it comes up with only one believable character. She's the one that sees dead people floating in trees. That's what we call an actor elevating the material. Cate is indeed great, but Mr. Thornton, Mr. Epperson, and Mr. Raimi shouldn't have expected her to cover all their asses. There's only so much one talented actress can do.

Since film is a collaborative effort, the blame for these two pictures can't entirely be laid on Billy Bob Thornton's ever shrinking shoulders. But he certainly should own up to his share of the blame. He recently claimed in an Entertainment Tonight interview that he thoroughly expected to be crucified in the media in the near future. His talent. His output. His relationship. Everything, you were expected to realize sympathetically, would be under siege. Now, normally I would only giggle slightly at the awkwardness of such celeb paranoia. Normally I wouldn't give it much credence beyond that... but judging on the quality of his last two efforts I think Billy has The Gift himself. He can see his own miserable future coming. Billy Bob chose the crucifixion metaphor, not I... but he would do well to remember that not everyone that was crucified in history was an innocent. Sometimes to escape the time you should avoid doing the crime. Considering both of these recent films, Mr. Thornton has some atoning to do.

-Nathaniel

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