When DVD’s were introduced, a number of critics hailed them as an opportunity for filmgoers to stop and reflect on films that hadn’t been given a fair shot the first time around. It hasn’t turned out that way. The constant flood of new product on the market has instead practically guaranteed that a film ignored on release has almost no chance of emerging into prominence on re release.

Such is the case with John Lee Hancock’s The Alamo (2004), which is remembered now, if at all, as a film that cost in excess of $130 million to produce and generated little more than $30 million in ticket sales. The film sank out of sight before anyone could analyze why it had failed, and since it was not a hit, no one wanted to defend it.

Watching The Alamo on DVD, it’s quite easy to see what went wrong. It has no male action stars, no parts for hot young actresses, and a story line that demands that the audience pay some attention. One has only to look at the five biggest-grossing films in the week when The Alamo was released to see what audiences wanted: Kill Bill: Vol. 2 , Man on Fire , Hellboy , The Punisher , and Walking Tall .

When you haven’t got anything to lure the kids, you need strong critical support. The Alamo was doomed on this count before a scene was filmed. When the project was announced, more than a year and a half before its release, Disney’s CEO, Michael Eisner, proclaimed that this telling of the near-mythical siege and fall of the Texas fort would “capture the post-September 11 surge in patriotism.” You don’t have to be of a liberal bent—although many film critics are—to find that statement a little crass. Eisner’s comment predisposed many in the press to treat this version as a mere update of John Wayne’s 1960 version of the Alamo story, which was widely seen as a Cold War metaphor.

Then there was the dreaded “troubled production history” syndrome. Ron Howard was supposed to direct but bolted when Disney would not approve the R-rated version he wanted to film (presumably this would have meant more explicit violence). Howard ended up producing, with Hancock, who had only one previous feature, The Rookie , directing.

All of this helps explain why The Alamo couldn’t find an audience, but the solitary
viewer probably won’t care about any of that and likely will be surprised to find how good the film actually is. Several critics remarked on the script’s “confusion,” but in fact the screenplay is a model of clarity. It presents us with the characters’ personal and political motivations without telling us how to feel about them. The film details