LEGENDS OF THE FALL (1994) ***1/2 I suspect that Edward Zwick's marching orders were something like "go make the ultimate chick movie." I'm not in a position to definitively judge, but if he missed it wasn't by much. I don't mean "chick movie" in any derogatory sense, I'm just not sure how else to describe cinema where they shoot guys with a soft lens and back-light their hair. James Homer's shamelessly maudlin music fits in nicely with the overt, quite nearly self-congratulatory, manipulation of the script writers. The Indian mysticism-light could have backfired horribly. But it didn't. The acting is superb, the landscapes spectacular. Julie Ormond is passable for everywoman's best perception of herself and the script gives her opportunities to sleep with both Brad Pitt and Aidan Quinn, and almost their other brother, without shame. What's a poor girl to do when her fiance' is killed in the war, and her husband turns to drugs and hunting animals? Sadly she ends up with the politician. Brad Pitt is incredible, he can apparently do anything. He somehow actually gives this film a gritty, earthy feeling. He raises the violence scenes to a near-Godfather level, a shadowy figure high in a hayloft. Anthony Hopkins is also brilliant as a liberal version of Big Daddy unable to convince his sons to skip the war, refusing to even speak to the one that goes into government. A different soundtrack, maybe Indian chanting and tambourines with a cheesy Dylanesque organ mixed way low, and clipping about fifteen minutes without Pitt in them and you got yourself a movie.
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