Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Page 164

Brokeback Mountain
Movie
Brokeback Mountain
Director
Ang Lee
Cast
Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Randy Quaid, Anne Hathaway



By Jimmy Jacob

Certainly, this is a Western with a difference.

Two young cowboys chance upon each other in the course of a sheep-herding job. And if you thought they jump to their feet and yell This Mountain ain't big enough for the two of us! before shooting each other to ribbons, you got another thing coming. These guys fall in love, have sex (though not necessarily in that order) before bringing the proceedings to an overtly sordid end.

And even as the end credits roll their way out of the movie screen, you wonder what the hoolabaloo was all about. Without a doubt, this movie falls way short of this year's Oscar winner Crash or, for that matter, Ms Annie Proulx's hyperbolic statements of appreciation.

If one were to look at Brokeback Mountain with an open mind, it would be realised that the movie's only USP is its homosexual-love-story factor. Take Jake off the screen and replace him with, say, Anne Heche, you would end up with a regular love story that is very boring in parts... and bland as half-cooked spaghetti.

No comments: