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Geronimo on DVD (1993)
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Radio Times
Thirty years passed after Chuck Connors took the title role in Geronimo, then two films about the legendary Chiricahua Apache warrior appeared in the same week in 1993. Many critics considered Roger Young's TV movie to be the superior production, and questioned whether this film from director Walter Hill was actually about its eponymous hero at all. But screenwriter John Milius, who had been trying to get the project off the ground for several years, has always used a secondary voice as a device to gain a deeper insight into his central characters. The narration provided here by Matt Damon's Lieutenant Britton Davis presents us with the wider picture from which to draw our conclusions. The film also caused a fuss over whether its depiction of the native Americans was in the revisionist tradition of Dances with Wolves or marked a return to the scalping savage of movie lore. Here, Milius and Hill argue that the massacres perpetrated by both sides were part and parcel of the struggle for nationhood, and should be seen in the context of their times rather than re-evaluated in the light of modern sensibilities. While many will find this uncomfortable to watch, there's no denying the quality of Joe Alves's painstakingly authentic design or the lovingly re-created period feel of Lloyd Ahern's cinematography. The acting is also first rate, with Wes Studi magnificent in the title role of the Apache whose refusal to surrender divides cavalry officers Jason Patric and Gene Hackman.
Handsome, moderately gripping Western, although the story, told often in voice-over from the viewpoint of a white Texan participant, distances the audience from its central character, treating him from the start as mythic, and also provides for a degree o Time Out This is the authentically bloody chronicle of the last Apache leader, as recorded in the memoirs of one of the... Read more on www.timeout.com Members ReviewsReviews Voted Most HelpfulMost Recent Reviews |
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