The Ballad of Davy Crockett

Crockett is an interesting figure, the second American celebrity in our history (after Franklin) and there's been no extensive serious film portrayal. A good movie on Davy is needed but this isn't the one.

The only thing this film has going for it is good production values. The plot is saccharine to the point of silliness (think Perils of Pauline,1914). Colm Meany is a solid actor but is annoying in some of the jejune scripts he has taken on (e.g., this one and Alleged, 2010).

Unless this film was targeting evangelicals I can't see why any thinking producer would have approved the script. Nothing here for any adult audience. Maybe we need another film rating category: N for niche audience.

I love a western, I can enjoy just about any one of them but this one was tough to watch. I don't care about the historical inaccuracy of it, what was so difficult to watch was the terrible acting and the meaningless and absurd scenes. Davey tames a wild horse by feeding it grass that's everywhere anyway, hops on it and rides away... oh boy.

There were so many other unrealistic scenes but the terrible acting just makes it hard to watch. Jesse Hutch was the only actor that you could say was an actor.

Someone said that all the acting was "very good", I respectfully, completely disagree.

I did like that there was no profanity or nudity which is never needed in a good western but there needs to be a good story to make it watchable.

There's no real plot or point to the movie, there are B movies, then there is this.

If you like sappy, uninteresting, goofy frontier movies with bad dialogue and mediocre acting, this movie is for you. I almost turned it off, but I thought I would give it a chance. I wanted to like it, but it really was that bad. And don't get me started about how historically inaccurate it was.

It's too bad, since there is plenty of historically accurate research out there about Dave's Crockett. They could have made this a much better movie. While the Disney series was pretty fluffy (made for children, so I guess it had to be), Fess Parker and Buddy Ensen made it enjoyable to watch.

(I guess certain kids might like this movie)

Several of the other reviewers give this movie low marks because it's not historically correct. One guy even used the word "disgusting" several times. There is nothing disgusting about this movie. No, it's not historically accurate but it does not claim to be a documentary or even biographical. It's just a story that uses Davy Crockett as it's main character. How many other westerns have depicted historical characters in ways that were not true to the historical record? Mercy, these days even so called documentaries are questionable, depending on their sources. This movie is enjoyable! Are a few scenes a little beyond belief or nonsensical? Absolutely, but this is true of most movies. Besides, many of us don't watch movies to see everything believable and realistic. We watch movies as a break from real life and just to be entertained. All the acting in this movie is very good. The script could have been a little better but it wasn't cringe-worthy by any means. My husband and I both enjoyed this. Clean, decent westerns that are actually good are very hard to find these days. Most westerns made these days are either filled with profanity, nudity and excessive violence or they are so badly written and poorly performed, they aren't worth the time of day...or both. Hollywood doesn't seem to get that just because people are adults, doesn't mean they want to watch mature content. That is what is disgusting!! This movie is just enjoyable. Cinematography is very good. Also enjoyed seeing Jesse Hutch play a bad guy.

The dialogue was stilted and unbelievable and the plot made little logical sense from one scene to the next. The historical inaccuracies were bad enough but were largely irrelevant in the long run. It almost seemed that they added a couple of scenes and a line or two of dialogue as an afterthought in order to tie it to the actual Davey Crockett. The acting was inconsistent but no amount of skillful acting could have saved this dog of a movie. How it's gotten 6 stars is a mystery to me.

I'm an old man who remembers fondly the Disney movie from my youth. I realize now how juvenile in some ways it was; but, at least, it made sense for the intended audience. This one makes no sense for anyone with a functional brain cell. It was just horrible!