Roger Ebert Said Billy Bob Thornton Gave His Best Performance In This Western Flop

2004's "The Alamo" was a box office bomb and critical failure. But not only is it nowhere near as bad as its reputation suggests, it also contains one of Billy Bob Thornton's best ever performances. That is, according to Roger Ebert, who absolutely loved the film and Thornton's portrayal of Davy Crockett, even while his fellow critics dismissed it all as nonsense.

Thornton is currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity thanks to his commanding lead performance in "Landman." While there's no doubt the veteran star is the highlight of a show that is basically just one big highlight, the role of Tommy Norris was written specifically for the actor. As such, Tommy is basically Thornton as a wildcatter. But the Arkansas native has long since proven his talents as a thespian capable of disappear into characters entirely unlike himself. Whether it's "Sling Blade," the Oscar-winning movie that Thornton credits with changing his life, or "A Simple Plan," the excellent 90s crime thriller that gave the actor his toughest scene ever, the now 70-year-old has one of the most impressive filmographies of any working actor.

For Ebert, however, Thornton's finest hour came in a 2004 historical Western that was not only a commercial flop but garnered some pretty awful reviews. "The Alamo" is not remembered fondly, if at all. But Ebert tried his best to promote the film, giving it just shy of four stars and commending Thornton for rendering Crockett as "the most three-dimensional" of all the Alamo heroes.

Every fan will have their own pick for the very best Billy Bob Thornton performance, but almost nobody would highlight "The Alamo." Much of that has to do with the fact that the film was a critical and commercial disaster. "The Alamo" was one of the biggest box office flops of all time, reportedly losing Touchstone Pictures and Buena Vista $146 million. At the time, audiences seemingly weren't interested in remembering the Alamo, and with the film's troubled production making matters worse, it's a wonder it even made it to theaters, let alone grossed the $25.8 million it eventually did.

Many filmmakers have tried to immortalize the Battle of the Alamo on the big screen, from D.W. Griffith to Disney, and John Wayne to, well, Disney again. Following the 1950 film "Davy Crockett," The Mouse had another go at a film about the Alamo when it bought Leslie Bohem's script and hired Ron Howard to direct. But Howard wanted too much in terms of budget and eventually left the project only to be replaced by John Lee Hancock, who at the time had only directed Disney's 2002 film "The Rookie."

As it turned out, Hancock actually delivered a solid effort, telling the story of General Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid) and his rebel army as they try to liberate Texas from the Mexican General Santa Anna (Emilio Echevarría). It all leads up to a final showdown at the titular mission, where Billy Bob Thornton's Davy Crockett is present and, according to Roger Ebert, is one of the highlights of a movie that otherwise struggled to earn much praise.

"The Alamo" wasn't just a box office bomb — it was also met with mostly negative reviews. But the film is nowhere near as bad as its 29% Rotten Tomatoes score would suggest. For one thing, it wasn't a movie propelled by lingering guilt like John Wayne's 1960 film "The Alamo." John Lee Hancock's version was more nuanced, taking the time to humanize the Mexican characters and even tackling the shortcomings of the American soldiers and their patriotism. For Roger Ebert, that made for a three-and-a-half star movie.

In his review, the critic made a thorough defense of the film, writing, "The advance buzz on 'The Alamo' was negative, and now I know why: This is a good movie." For Ebert, the "brutal and unforgiving" battle scenes and "awesome long shots" made for an engrossing retelling of the Battle of the Alamo. But it was the way in which the movie "capture[d] the loneliness and dread of men waiting for two weeks for what they expect to be certain death," and took "pop-culture brand names like Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie" and gave them "human form" that really stood out. That, and Billy Bob Thornton.

"Davy Crockett, the man in the coonskin hat," wrote Ebert, "surprisingly becomes the most three-dimensional of the Alamo heroes, in one of Billy Bob Thornton's best performances." As far as the critic saw it, Thornton had brought "a poignant dignity" to his scenes as the legendary frontiersman, all of which is surely a reason to revisit "The Alamo."