Alternate Best Supporting Actor 2000: Lucas Black in All The Pretty Horses

Lucas Black did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Jimmy Blevins in All the Pretty Horses. 

All the Pretty Horses is a bit of a failure as a film, and marked the immediate end to Billy Bob Thornton as a potentially notable director despite his success with Sling Blade, though the film falters in more than a few ways in its tale about two cowboys who go through quite a lot while searching for work, I think one of the central flaws is in the main casting of the romantic leads (Matt Damon, Penelope Cruz) who are both dull and out of place within the style Thornton seems to be going for.

Supporting my point to an extent I think here is one of the few carry overs from Thornton's previous film, Lucas Black, the young performer who gave a successful performance as the young boy who befriends the unusual central character of Sling Blade. Black appears here, and again, despite being a little bit older, maintains that feeling of authenticity, notably missing from Damon's turn. Black appears a strange young man riding a seeming stolen horse who comes across the other two men of Damon and his riding partner (Henry Thomas). Black's performance honestly does seem out of a different movie, or perhaps the movie Thornton was unsuccessfully trying to make. Black brings an off-beat energy to his performance, though also distinctly feels honest to the setting and attempted style of the film. This as he brings this certain bluster that he plays just the right way, to be too much in regards towards how the characters see him within the film, but not too much that he becomes obvious within his own acting. Black finds the right elegant balance there, and has this right nonsensical, but also quietly endearing power to the role. Black makes his Jimmy Blevins, who rides on what seems like a stolen horse, a fool but a fool you don't dislike. 

 

Eventually we find him again as the prisoner of a corrupt Mexican prisoner, where he has been mistreated and abused. Black's work again is just engaging at a far more complex and interesting level then his co-stars. This as there is a real sense of intensity and even dread in the moment of finding in the prison. Black giving a sense of what the boy has been through, but also still a sense of the earnest seeming innocence that still exists in the kid. Black's recounting of the boy's story, in which he killed several men. Black's performance is terrific in this moment as he manages to create a sense of the kid's character as in his delivery of explaining what happened, Black is able to craft some sense of innocence even though it involved the death of the men. He delivers the right earnestness about even as there is this somber undercurrent showing the pain of the situation, while also showing more than anything the boy ran into problems as a fool not with maliciousness. Black ends up being quietly heartbreaking in his final scenes this as he still carries that same earnestness in his manner as the boy's spirit isn't completely gone as dire as his situation appears. Black brings a troubled optimism as he believes there's something for him still even as it is clear his captors have little interest in his side of the story. Black is altogether great in his final scene in portraying the moment of realization that he is about to be taken to be executed. This just physically showing the boy doing everything to try to fight in his escape, and being wholly devastating conveying the terrible sense of fear as he is taken off to his death. The last frame of his performance being rather haunting n showing the boy finally fully understanding where it is that he is going. Although it isn't saying much to say he's the best part of the film, his work suggests the path the film could've or should've taken, that feels this authentic tale of the modern west, not some glossy Hollywood nonsense that the rest of the film comes off as. Although I think Black is an actor who is often cast in the wrong films, glossy Hollywood nonsense, he's actually consistently good when given the right role with the material that serves his honest and unfussy presence as a performer.