Eagle Pennell’s Last Night at the Alamo is a small film that raises both the hope and the possibility that Mr. Pennell will make bigger ones. Shot in a primitive style, and using both accents and equipment that sometimes make its sound muddy, it’s the ribald and faintly mournful chronicle of a seedy Houston hangout that’s about to close its doors for the last time, much to the chagrin of the regular clientele.
This includes Cowboy (Sonny Davis), a local hero with a reputation to live up to and a hat that he’d better keep on; Claude (Lou Perry), who’s in the process of being thrown out by his wife and who curses her imaginatively throughout the film, and Ichabod (Steve Matilla) and Mary (Tina Hubbard), a combative couple but clearly a love match. From the moment when they first drive up, with Ichabod at the wheel of their Pest Control van, to the point at which, after much boasting and advertising from Ichabod, they disappear in the direction of the Paradise Motel, these two provide the film with its comic relief. As directed by Mr. Pennell and written by Kim Henkel (who also wrote The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Last Night at the Alamo has a surface energy and a subliminal bleakness that work well together. A large cast of incidental characters, including the writer and director in tiny roles, all join in cursing, drinking, carousing and otherwise preparing themselves for imminent disaster. –NY Times Movie Review
