Geronimo: An American Legend | | Cast : | Jason Patric, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall | | Director : | Walter Hill | | Studio : | Columbia/Tristar Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Full Screen | | Released Date : | December 10, 1993 | | DVD Released Date : | June 01, 2004 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 05, 2005 | | Summary | Sincere, well made, but flawed | Content
 | This 1993 movie aims for historical accuracy, and does reasonably well in that regard. The cinematography is great, and the battle scenes are above average in portraying the Apache Wars. Having veteran actors like Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall, however, can't help the fact that Jason Patric (Jackie Gleason's grandson, believe it or not)can't hold the lead in this movie. Wes Studi isn't bad, but his performance here isn't as good as the one he gave in 1992's "Last of the Mohicans." All in all, not a bad movie, but definitely not a great one. The best film presentation of the Apache Wars, in my opinion, is the 1979 TV miniseries "Mister Horn," with David Carradine and Richard Widmark. Let's hope that comes out on DVD some day! |
| Rating | | | Date | January 04, 2005 | | Summary | I dislike westerns, but this was incredibly good! | Content
| A friend who had lent me the Alamo, Rough Riders, Squanto and Gods and Generals pressed this into my hands saying, "this is really good." Uggh, I thought, not another awful cowboy movie! Wow, I was really impressed. This is one of the best movies I have seen in the last five years!
The profound fact is that this is really a war movie set in the U.S. west, about two militaristic cultures who spend a lot of energy trying to kill each other. That sounds simplistic but the complexities are deep and abundant, and are all played out with excellent effect in less than two hours. It is a rare film that can do this in under two hours. This is rare stuff indeed!
The characters are very deep and very complex. The violence (about 50% of the movie) is dramatic and not pretty. No one culture comes away clean, everyone has their massacres. This is war after all. There is no real moralizing here, no good guys and bad guys, this gives it a very real feel.
The Apaches speak what is presumably Apache when they are speaking to each other, and English when not. This gives it a truly bilingual feel. Even the Texans vocabulary is laced with Spanish words, setting them off from others.
There is tremendous suspense. One never knows who will come out alive at any given moment. There is no predictable sense that the leading actors are guaranteed to finish the film. This is played to tremendous effect by Patric and Studi. Duvall's coarseness is a great counterpoint to the more sensitive Patric, and Hackman plays a good balance between bureaucrat and soldier.
The scenery is fantastic, and the sad story of the Apache's losing battle to preserve and express their culture in a shrinking frontier is poignant. There is much to the mix of a variety of cultures in conflict that is expressed very well here in a complex movie. Probably a film that many directors could learn from. I thought this was a tremendous film! |
| Rating | | | Date | November 12, 2004 | | Summary | Geronimo | Content
| This is the second Walter Hill movie I've seen recently, and I believe I'm getting the hang of it. At least as far as his westerns go. Hill takes as his subject matter a larger-than-life character, in this case the Apache warrior Geronimo, and embellishes the facts to fit a larger truth. I say that without sarcasm or disapproval. Hill turns a bandit queen into a prostitute, kills off one of his characters in the wrong place at the wrong time (to give a big star a death scene,) invents a fight between two men who probably never met, much less knew of each other. There's a good reason this one is subtitled "An American Legend." It's a fair approach for a filmmaker to take, but the raw material of his films have been so finely sifted by so many passionate students for so long they're almost magnets for those prone to nit-pick the tiniest historical accuracy.
When I set aside my concerns for historical accuracy I discovered I enjoyed the heck out of this movie. It looks beautiful, always a plus with a western shot on location. Wes Studi, an American Indian of the Cherokee Nation, really reaches deep into the core of Geronimo - courageous, proud to the point of arrogance, and ultimately doomed. To Hill's credit Geronimo isn't a two-dimensional wooden noble. Likewise, his "bad" guys, in this case racist scout Robert Duvall, aren't caricatures either. Hill doesn't paint in bold contrasts, and GERONIMO: AN AMERICAN LEGEND feels real. This mature approach comes at a price. It's hard to build up to big dramatic moments in an action film when you don't have highly contrasted Good Guys and Bad Guys. Fortunately for the film and the audience GERONIMO'S cast is filled with high-caliber actors able to portray complex characters without losing the audience in the process.
There's also a highly developed sense of intervention in GERONIMO. Gene Hackman's General Crook ("They don't realize it, but I'm the best friend the Apaches have") shields the Indians from a harsh interpretation of his orders. Jason Patric visually embodies this theme - in a number of scenes he steps in between an angry aimed gun and the Native American it's pointed at. Ultimately, I believe, Hill also intervenes between his audience and awkward facts and sour interpretations. It's an approach that drives some historians to distraction, but also occasionally results in highly entertaining movies.
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| Rating | | | Date | May 03, 2004 | | Summary | Very Emotional | Content
| This movie was emotional and shows the war between the yankee cowboys and the Indians a.k.a Hipatchis. Geranimo leads his villagers to victory but soon comes across crazy charecters and racist cowboys like Robert Duvall. All star cast, but this movie is to emotional, very biographic and more of a documentary that a movie. Still a classic. 10/10. |
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