Having not watched "Last Night at the Alamo" in about fifteen years, I decided to revisit it last night. My remembered impression of the movie was quickly confirmed. This is perhaps the most realistic, true to life film I have ever seen. The seedy bar characters and their character development is terrific. You have the henpecked husband, the immature boyfriend, the veteran drunk, the bar bully, the quiet guy, a few bar trollops, and the legendary "cowboy" who everyone seems to idolize. The beauty of all this is everything is played out in real time, so it is like you are really there, sitting on a barstool, watching the goings on. - MERK
Add a Review
-
knsevy29 March 2004I was lucky enough to catch this on the Independent Film Channel, thinking it was a different film entirely. Within a few minutes, I was engrossed.
It seemed from the very beginning that I was watching real people, not actors; that someone was just filming what happened to be going on. The fact that several of the actors have no other credits besides Last Night At the Alamo bears out this theory.
These are real people with real jobs, real lives and real problems. You can go to any dank bar in America and find exactly the same people you're watching, here, and they'll act exactly the same way. They come in, tell lame stories, posture for each other, and get drunker and stupider as the night goes on.
The byplay between Cowboy and Claude was interesting; it felt like a seduction, at times. It would have added a new dimension to the film if Cowboy had actually been trying to put the moves on his friend, but the filmmakers copped out on that one.
As more and more characters showed up at the bar, I started to think that Cowboy didn't even exist, and I'd been suckered into a drunken version of 'Waiting for Godot'. When he did show up, I immediately began to wonder exactly why he was so popular with the patrons - and believe me, there's a guy like that in EVERY bar.
It's difficult to describe the rest; the concept was so simple, it boils down into very few words. It looks like this film hasn't been released to the home market, yet, so I'll have to keep my eyes open and tape it, next time it comes around. I suggest you do the same. -
rockyqlz1 September 1999This hard-to-find gem is more than a slice of Texas, it's a slice of America. It's the final night of the local loser hangout, shot as if you just walked in the place and hung out for an hour and a half. I really wonder how much of the film's dialogue was actually scripted and how much was adlibbed. There are some truly funny one-liners early on (Mostly by "Claude"). The non-stop profanity does get a little unrealistic and the ending was sort of unsatisfactory, however, what we have is a film containing most of the elements of a truly classic independent film. Sort of a po' man's "Last Picture Show". Seek it out.
-
jimidom23 June 1999I think the same elements that have made "King Of The Hill" a hit comedy are present in this cult film masterpiece. Just as there are everyday-life characters that closely resemble Hank Hill, Dale, and Boomhower, there are real people much like Cowboy, Claude, Ichabod, and the rest of the gang who like to hang out at the Alamo. It is this realism of the characters that makes "Last Night At the Alamo" so good.
This film brilliantly plays more like a documentary than a feature film, and it is shot in black & white. The use of live sound as opposed to overdubs also lends to this documentary-type feel. "Last Night At the Alamo" is very unique in that regard.
The acting was superb, especially Lou Perry as Claude. Sonny Carl Davis, most well-remembered as the jerk businessman who demands a refund from Brad Hamilton in "Fast Times At Ridgemont High", was excellent as the charismatic Cowboy Regan. Furthermore, Steve Mattila turned in a memorable performance as the annoying Ichabod.
Eagle Pennell may have captured the most realistic portrayal of blue-collar Texas ever. Because of this in my opinion, this film ranks right up there with greatest Texas films of time like "Giant", "the Alamo", "Urban Cowboy", and "the Last Picture Show". -
I have often sat in a bar, as depicted in this film, just to observe the action (I'm the quiet guy at the end of the bar with his back to the wall, nursing his drink). The wonderful thing about this movie is it's realism. It takes you there without actually being there. You become that voyeuristic 'fly on the wall'. I will often come to imdb after watching a film to read member comments. At present there are 5 listed. I couldn't agree more with all of them. Well said. How gratifying when you find others that share your view. The characterizations and acting are superb. A wonderful ensemble production with both the writer and director appearing. Thanks for a great film. Somebody is missing the boat by not having this film out on dvd/vhs. Watch for it on IFC and be prepared to tape, you might want to share.
-
snake32406 October 2004The Last Night At the Alamo is a GREAT movie. It took me forever to find it but when I did I was not disappointed. I have heard and read about it and many people have said that its a Texas classic. I had to buy it off EBAY and I had tried 3 times before only to outbid by 100$. That shows you how bad some people wanted this rare treasure. This movie had a very simple plot that anyone who has ever stepped foot in a bar can relate to. Its in black and white to give you that old western kind of a feel. Overall a great movie I just wish there was a way the video could be more distributed. If I am correct this movie is out of print and can only be bought or located by people who are willing to sell the video. If you stumble upon it buy it.
-
This movie is disgusting. I kept hitting fast forward, hoping for something that never arrived. Watch the first 10 minutes, if you can, then watch the last 5 minutes, and then imagine every curse word repeated 1000 times, and you've seen this piece of Crapp olla. I was raised in a redneck beer joint. This was a disgusting caricature of poor southern people who work, but only earn about half what their northern counterparts make. Like Amos and Andy for rich Yankees.
-
Matthew-404 March 2004This film was simply great. It has so much realism it seems almost unreal. Yeah, not a lot happens but it's a great character study. The way in which we get to see the characters exposed is amazing. Take for example Cowboy. He's a hot shot that everyone seems to like (except Steve). Everyone admires and looks up to him. Then we see him come undone. Cowboy knows he's a loser and now their taking the last thing that he cares about away from him. The way it was shot in black in white definately sets the tone for the film. It's a depressing drama in which everything falls apart for just about all of it's characters. However, we're left with the feeling that nothing that happened that night will matter in the morning. This is a typical night at the Alamo...
-
A wonderful, unjustly forgotten little beaut of a film, a wryly seriocomic and sharply observant slice-of-life character study focusing on the feckless, outmoded, past his prime modern-day "cowboy" and his increasingly woeful, insignificant plight in a rapidly changing contemporary society that no longer has any room or tolerance for the cowboy's rowdy, roughhewn, obstinately conservative he-man way of life. A small Houston, Texas bar called the Alamo is going to be razed to make room for a high-rise building. The tawdry Texas tavern's a popular hangout where the brittle, pathetic, alcoholic nobody regulars -- a bunch of hyper-masculine strutting redneck yahoos stuck in a permanent state of arrested adolescence -- pour their hearts out about how they're catching lots of flack from both their wives and at work while also drowning their sorrows in a sea of liquor so they can feel better about their poor, wretched old selves. The Alamo supplies a means of escape for its lower middle-class blue collar patrons, a fantasyland where the otherwise weak, inconsequential male regulars can parade forth their flashy, hoked-up machismo and pretend to be kings rather than the lowly, powerless serfs that they really are.
Independent Lone Star state filmmaker Eagle Pennell's incisive, restrained direction deftly captures and conveys an elegiac, realistic nighttime down-home feel, a wistfully reflective and melancholy tone that in turn creates a poignancy which proves to be extremely moving because it never seems remotely forced or contrived. Brain Huderman and Eric A. Edwards' plain, stark, gorgeously unadorned monochromatic black and white cinematography lends the film an authentically gritty, quasi-verite look, palpably evoking a smoky, grungy, unglamorous barroom milieu with remarkable vividness. Most impressive of all is the caustically witty and perceptive script by Kim Henkel, who co-wrote both "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Eaten Alive" for Tobe Hooper. Henkel's exceptional screenplay, loaded with often sidesplitting, full-bore and surprisingly eloquent profanity, offers a touching, trenchant critique of the all rugged and stoical on the outside, but quite anguished and vulnerable on the inside macho male condition, convincingly showing how the common male hang-up of refusing to mature and accept responsibility as one gets older can prove to be highly counterproductive to both emotional and intellectual growth.
Moreover, although the picture takes the immature manly man attitude to the cleaners, the characters are never drawn in a smug, condescending way. In fact, the warts and all guys who populate the movie come across as a genuinely likable, sympathetic and affecting bunch. This is largely due to the uniformly top-notch acting, with particularly superb performances by Sonny Carl ("Melvin and Howard," "Fast Times at Ridgemont High") Davis as the blustery, arrogant, much-revered Cowboy, who gets exposed as an inadequate phony little nothing with unattainable big man delusions; Steven Mitilla as the scrawny, insecure, irritable William (a.k.a. "Ichabod"), Tina-Bess Hubbard as William's sweet, long-suffering girlfriend, and the incredible, under-appreciated Lou ("The Blues Brothers," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2") Perry, who brings a funny, touching pathos to his role as Claude, an excitable, despondent, hen-pecked working class stiff who spends half the movie on the phone making fumbling attempts at reconciling with his estranged wife. Made at a time when countless big-budget Hollywood action blockbusters glorified macho excess and made it seem very attractive, "Last Night at the Alamo" stands out as a marvelous anomaly that's totally out of sync with the brutish, testosterone-charged no-brainer mentality of its era, eschewing breast-beating machismo for a quietly astute and bittersweet introspection which makes for a beautifully smart and revealing portrait of hard-headed masculinity and its unfortunate consequences. -
bill-46122 October 2000Steve Mattilla is amazing in this film. His portrayal of Ichabod is the epitome of physical acting. I loved this film and I think that anyone who longs for their wine and roses days (or their beer and beer nuts days,) will feel a twinge of pain at the demise of the Alamo.
-
lor_30 January 2023My review was written in October 1983 after a screening at the New York Film Festival.
"Last Night at the Alamo" is a low-budget Texas film that boasts a lot of actors' energy but lacks the cinematic style to let it escape from he specialized category. With nearly all the action set in a small Houston bar, pic perilously recalls a Southern-fried "Iceman Cometh".
Filmmakers Eagle Pennell and Kim Henkel (latter a co-scripter of Tobe Hooper's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") are fans of "The Wild Bunch", but what they have taken from that film is not its style or themes but rather the folksy, vibrant dialog of Walon Green and Sam Peckinpah. This gives "Alamo" considerable verbal texture, as characters carry on in local argot or cha about clothing bought at the "Monkey Ward's" department store.
Opening reel is so densely packed with four-letter expletives that the initially disarming device becomes tiresome. So, too, do the players, declaiming endlessly in the pipe dreams and complaints manner of barflies. Ichabod (Steve Matilla) is a scrawny young man, shooting pool, picking fights and trying to scoot his gal Mary (Tina-Bess Hubbard) off to the nearest hot-sheets motel. Claude (Louis Perryman) is a loud and foul-mouthed guy with wife trouble, constantly (and tediously) on the phone at the Alamo bar.
A late arrival is made by Cowboy Regan (Sonny Carl Davis), a smug, egocentric guy who believes he can "save" the Alamo, which has been sold by its owner and is due for immediate demolition to make way for high-rise buildings, appealing by phone to his old college roommate and now a state representative. Though he beats up an old high school rival Steve (J. Michael Hammond) who dares to doubt this claim, the effort to save the bar is, of course, just another pipe dream.
Director Pennell errs in shooting his film in a style reminiscent of live tv drama in the 1950s: low-key (for high contrast) lighting in black and white and claustrophobic framing (such as a foreground head, typically Claude's on the phone, dominating mid-ground action). Cumulative effect is oppressive. His actors are on too long a leash, with Louis Perryman's initially entertaining explosive swearing routine ending up sounding like a Steve Landesburg stand-up parody of a "good ole boy" dialect.
Lead player Davis, a balding young actor resembling Robert Duvall and Robert Stack, carries much of the picture by underplaying compared to the rest of the cast. Steven Matilla as "don't call me Ichabod" is quite funny in small doses and scripter Henkel has written himself in a cute John Sayles-esque deadpan role as Lionel, so laconic a critter that everyone else has to tell his personal anecdotes for him. The women's roles are seriously underwritten.
Tech credits are acceptable, though he direct sound recorded dialect gets a bit thick during some of the shouting matches.