All the Pretty Horses

Miramax Films | Release Date: December 25, 2000

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

55	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 29 Critic Reviews

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Critic Reviews

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Roger Ebert

You can see how this movie could have been jacked up into a one-level action picture, but what makes it special is how Thornton modulates the material. Read full review

Michael Wilmington

Thornton and his excellent company summon up for us the long rides, dangerous companions, rites of passage, the mad love and, most of all, the special relationship between the man/boys that rode over the border and the horses that carried them there.

Richard Schickel

A perfectly coherent, handsomely rendered couple of hours, animated in particular by Damon's good performance -- shrewd, innocent, angry, wistful and, above all, likable. Read full review

Jack Mathews

Thornton, directing his first film since the minimalist "Sling Blade" (1996), has a much better grip on the material when he's focused on the scruffy desert landscape and the adventures of the two Texans. Read full review

Edward Guthmann

An elegiac, visually hypnotic film about love, honor, reverence for nature and the loss of tradition. Read full review

Desson Thomson

Thornton, writer-director of the superb "Slingblade," has a gift for depicting down-and-dirty scenes among men. And when our three principal characters go riding from Texas to Mexico, this is the best part of the movie. Read full review

Kenneth Turan

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. Read full review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

The landscapes--which come close to outshining the worthy actors in the opening and closing stretches--are beautiful, and the plot, which is basically a grim coming-of-age story, holds one's interest throughout. Read full review

Dana Stevens

The movie, for all its prettiness, manages to be shallow and portentous at the same time. Read full review

Marjorie Baumgarten

The film's elegiac tone and honest heart come through. Read full review

Steven Rea

Lacks an essential sense of purpose.

Chris Kaltenbach

Even a full week after seeing it, I'm still influenced enough by the film's many enchantments not to be overly concerned with its flaws.

Jay Carr

To paraphrase Andre Malraux, it invokes but it doesn't always supply, doesn't course strongly enough with the book's themes of blood and earth and dislocation.

TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh

The movie's greatest liability is the familiarity of the material, much parodied since the glory days of John Ford. Unfortunately, Thornton's love for its iconography doesn't quite bring it to life. Read full review

Film.comSean Means

All the Pretty Horses may end up being a good movie to watch on DVD, when all the footage is restored and we can see the subtle shadings Thornton jettisoned. Read full review

David Ansen

A movie of arresting pieces that don't harmonize into a satisfying whole.

Mr. ShowbizLarry Terenzi

A botched effort. Not necessarily bad, but hardly compelling either.

Todd McCarthy

A half-broken adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's great modern Western novel. Neither dull nor exciting. Read full review

Mike Clark

As this year's literary adaptations go, Horses comes a lot closer to being a truly bad movie than "The Perfect Storm" did, yet it would be hard to argue that the two are not the year's most disappointing in terms of trampled hopes. Read full review

Rene Rodriguez

It's like a tantalizing CliffsNotes version of what could have been.

Peter Travers

It doesn't help that Damon and Cruz fail to generate sparks or that the second half of the film, in which John and Lacey face hell in a Mexican prison, feels bluntly edited to fit a two-hour running time.