The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez

Because I'm a movie buff (and own about 3,000 titles), I am always eager to consume something unusual, or "important" or something key that just slipped by me. I VAGUELY remember when THE BALLAD OF GREGORIO CORTEZ was released (I live in Albuquerque, NM...near where much of it was filmed), and I knew it was important even then, but somehow I missed actually seeing it. But one of my goals has been to work through my collection of Criterion Blu Rays...a self-taught crash-course in movie history. This way, I get to see a wide variety of movies, from a variety of countries and eras. And most of the time, the films are VERY worthwhile, even if challenging. But not always.

THE BALLAD OF GREGORIO CORTEZ is such a film for me. Reading a bit about it (including the essay enclosed in the box) gave me a good idea of why this film is noteworthy. A film focused on a Hispanic leading character. A "gritty" Western before that was really a thing. A film that played with the notion of how miscommunication can cause deep pain, by not translating the spoken Spanish via subtitles...so that we just have to infer or guess what the topic is. I like Westerns, generally, so I was ready for an enjoyable experience.

The scenery is gorgeous, and the film is grainy (Criterion does such a good job of making these home viewing experiences like seeing FILM on a real screen). The color palette is muted. So there is a sense of perhaps seeing this story "back in time." Almost like a slightly sepia-tinted film. It gives a great sense of being in a place AND time.

But the effort to create a realistic story, free from gloss or sheen means we also have a lot of people all talking at the same time (like happens in real life), but makes it very difficult to understand. I finally had to turn on the sub-titles because I couldn't even figure out what person everyone was playing. The sound mix was often problematic...sometimes the musical soundtrack (or even the title song) was on way too loud. It didn't feel like part of a the movie, but like someone had put on a CD in an effort to drown out the movie.

It tells the story of Gregorio Cortez, a poor farmer who has a very unfortunate encounter with a local sheriff and his TERRIBLE translator, which leads to a misunderstanding that leads to tragedy and forces Cortez to go on the run. The town law is after him. The Texas Rangers are after him. How can he possibly escape? And if he's caught, will his story be heard? This is all fine, and sounds like the makings of a good film. But there were too many scenes of lots of men in the posse just talking and talking and talking. The story is told in flashback, which is fine, but the "flashing-back" isn't always well delineated, and you don't always know right away that is what's happening. And the biggest flaw of all is the character of Gregorio Cortez. In the first half of the movie, we mostly see him riding his horse very fast, swapping it out for another horse he is stealing, and then riding fast some more. Seeing a young Edward James Olmos, who is a fine actor, is amusing, but I didn't find myself caring much about his fate. He is mostly stoic in the movie and difficult to read. Perhaps that helps with the idea of the English-speaking viewer not really understanding this man or what moves/motivates him. But to me, it felt like a HUGE failing.

The rest of the cast is fairly solid, and included folks we still enjoy today like Barry Corbin, along with performers like James Gammon, who passed some time ago. It's a great collection of American character actors, working in a noisy, boisterous ensemble (hence, my difficulty in making out the dialogue).

I'm glad I saw the movie. If nothing else, I checked a box that represented a gap in my film knowledge. But as an avid viewer of movies, I was actually a bit bored and the film felt much longer than its 100 minute run time.

Robert Young is an American director whose fitful opportunities to direct nearly always has turned up singular results. This treatment of the legend of a master horseman who evaded capture during weeks of vigilante pursuit shows Young's usual care with milieu, historical detail, and shadings of character. Olmos is a splendid icon in the lead, but the revelation is James Gammon, who never had a better film role, and the supporting cast is studded with fine character actors (including two who come over w/Olmos from the BLADE RUNNER set to appear here). A climactic scene, involving a female translator working between law and prisoner in a tiny cell, has stayed in my mind for 18 years for its depiction of a heartbreaking communion between adversaries. But Young knows what Westerns do best-- trains and horses, the two most cinematic subjects in the world-- and they're both here in aces.

With a cast and ensemble of satisfactory to great actors, director Robert M Young's "The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez" is a compelling chase story featuring notable performances from a younger lead Edward James Olmos and many journeymen (some now late) actors including James Gammon, Brion James, Bruce McGill, and Rosanna Desoto. I liked the realism of the movie to a certain degree, though the music seemed a bit out of place. Cinematography was competent, and you could relate to the injustice of what appeared to happen. From a time from which no-one now lives, director Young seems to want to give a fair shake to Cortez's sad story. Olmos is is up to the task to paint a human picture of a man in fear on the run unjustly, and the movie helps solidify Olmos career earlier. Deserving of a watch and entertaining. 7/10.

This is a heartbreaking true story of a miscarriage of justice as well as an examination of racism and prejudice in early 1900's Texas. Edward James Olmos is outstanding in the title role and gives one of the finest performances in this underrated actor's career. The film also has a fine supporting cast of Western character actors headed by Bruce McGill as a reporter following the posse, James Gammon as a dedicated sheriff and Barry Corbin as the lawyer who takes up Cortez' case. The prison, courtroom and post-trial scenes are emotionally powerful. This is a low budget effort which probably explains the poor lighting and sometimes shaky camera work, but this largely unknown and underrated gem deserves to be discovered for its fine acting and compelling story.

Surprised that there are not more reviews for this intelligent, sensitive film about racial prejudice and injustice, Texas style, that I'm sure was shown in many a Lone Star State, high school social studies class back in the eighties. Nowadays, of course, GregAbbott and his MAGA minions would deride it as "woke" and try mightily to suppress it. But I digress.

I am not as enthusiastic about this film as the majority of my fellow reviewers, though. It's kind of like eating kale. You know it's good for you but it lacks flavor. Maybe that is because, as written by Victor Villasenor and director Robert M Young, the title character is not really a character at all but, rather, a symbol of victimhood. And while you may like symbolism I find it to be a bore. Give me a flesh and blood person with plenty of ambiguities any day over the suffering saint portrayed by Eddie Olmos. Someone, say, like sheriff Frank Fly, by leaps and bounds the most interesting person in the movie, perfectly played in all his flawed goodness by the great western character actor, James Gammon. And when you find yourself extolling the virtues of Fly over Cortez as a believable human being in a film called "The Ballad Of Gregorio Cortez" it is time to give said film a C plus.