All the Pretty Horses

Chicago Sun-Times 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.

Chicago Tribune 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.

Time 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.

New York Daily News 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.

San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann

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

Chicago Reader 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.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

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

Washington Post 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.

Los Angeles Times 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.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

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

Baltimore Sun 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.

Boston Globe 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.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Lacks an essential sense of purpose.

TV Guide Maitland 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.

Film.com Sean 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.

Newsweek David Ansen

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

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Remains as flat as the Texas plains.

Village Voice Amy Taubin

The film is too eager to please and falls short of the novel's tragic dimension.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Never really gets out of the starting gate.

Variety Todd McCarthy

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

USA Today 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.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

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

Rolling Stone 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.

Mr. Showbiz Larry Terenzi

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

Dallas Observer M. V. Moorhead

It all feels disorienting and truncated, as if the script, by Ted Tally, who also adapted "Silence of the Lambs," was a harried summary of the book.

Film.com Ernest Hardy

It limps, not gallops, across the screen for what seems an interminable stretch of time and leaves the viewer with precious little to show for the experience.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

McCarthy's rawhide has become movie Naugahyde, a substance unknown in literature or in nature.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Most movies take a while to slip you into a stupor. All the Pretty Horses makes you groggy right away. Set in 1949, it's a lackadaisical series of vignettes apparently culled from a much longer movie that never made it to the screen. Be thankful for that.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

At under two hours, the movie crawls by; at four, people would become fossilized to their seats.