Bring coffee, because director Dean Wright's dramatization of the 3-year-long Cristero War (1926-9) seems to last longer than the Mexican conflict itself. I saw the movie a month ago, and I'm not entirely convinced that it's ended yet. Wright, an effects veteran of the Lord of the Rings films, has lost his way in bringing Michael Love's overstuffed screenplay to the screen. It's hard to take a film seriously that features so much fake facial hair and wigs glued to good actors (Oscar Isaac, Bruce Greenwood, Ruben Blades) sweating in the hot sun. Fatally, James Horner's overbearing music underlines every tragic beat, from 12-year-old altar boy Jose (Mauricio Kuri) witnessing the execution of a beloved priest (Peter O'Toole), to the boy's solemn trek towards martyrdom as he fights for freedom from religious persecution in the Cristeros ("Christ's Army") under father figure General Enrique Gorostieta Velarde (Andy Garcia). Dreadful.
