Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Antonio Banderas | ... | Pancho Villa | |
Eion Bailey | ... | Frank Thayer | |
Alan Arkin | ... | Sam Drebben | |
Jim Broadbent | ... | Harry Aitken | |
Matt Day | ... | John Reed | |
Michael McKean | ... | William Christy Cabanne | |
Colm Feore | ... | D.W. Griffith | |
Alexa Davalos | ... | Teddy Sampson | |
Anthony Head | ... | William Benton (as Anthony Stewart Head) | |
Kyle Chandler | ... | Raoul Walsh | |
Saul Rubinek | ... | Eli Morton | |
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Cosme Alberto | ... | Abraham Sanchez |
Damián Alcázar | ... | Gen. Rodolfo Fierro | |
Pedro Armendáriz Jr. | ... | Don Luis Terrazas (as Pedro Armendáriz) | |
Fernando Becerril | ... | Priest |
Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa (Antonio Banderas) finds himself without adequate funding to finance his war against the military-run government. He also finds himself at odds with the Americans because of the Hearst media empire's press campaign against him. To counter both of these, he sends emissaries to movie producers to convince them to pay to film his progress and the actual battles. Producer D.W. Griffith (Colm Feore) becomes interested and sends Frank Thayer (Eion Bailey) with a film crew to develop film reels. Thayer becomes horrified and fascinated by the bandit. He finds an enigmatic individual that is both ghoulishly brutal and charmingly captivating. The resulting film became the first feature length movie, introducing scores of Americans to the true horrors of war that they had never personally seen. Thayer sold the studios on making the film despite their concerns that no one would sit through a movie longer than 1 hour by convincing them that they could raise the ... Written by John Sacksteder <jsackste@bellsouth.net>
I did not expect the premise of the movie to work but it did. This story line and the wonderful way it was developed and portrayed on screen is so much missing in the fare presented by the major studios any more. I had to put my book down! Antonio Banderas so thoroughly submerges himself into the character that after awhile he BECAME Pancho Villa. He made Pancho Villa at once hero and villain; resolute and uncertain; stoic and tender. Best of all, there was no attempt to wrap the feature up in a tidy bow at the end.
I have my TIVO permanently locked on HBO.
I am curious about the original film - The Life of General Villa (1914) - in which IMDB shows only two performers, Pancho Villa and Raoul Walsh.