Alamo Bay
It tells a multi-faceted and tragic narrative about America that is frequently picked up by tabloids and sticks with you for months after the sort of story where you later wonder what became of all those people, consumed by their crisis. In this particular case, the stories were about war between native Gulf Coast shrimp boat fisherman and new arrivals from Vietnam who were accused by locals of invading their traditional territory and ruining fishing opportunities.
There are many values at stake here the weight of tradition carried by the Texans vs. The right of Vietnamese immigrants to make money; or the fact that many fishermen fought in Vietnam and aren’t now much impressed that those new Vietnamese happened to be on our side.
“Alamo Bay” tells its story from the point of view of one such fisherman, played by Ed Harris as an angry alcoholic who holds onto his boat like grim death but fears he can’t pay for it anyway. He’s got an unhappy home life, a love affair with a local woman (Amy Madigan) on the side whose father (Donald Moffat) rents boats to the Vietnamese; he considers their presence an affront, and begins taking along a rifle on his daily trips. The Vietnamese begin to think they may have to use force to protect themselves.
This is not a good situation, and “Alamo Bay” understands that best when it stops being good. Its emotional center lies in Harris’ relationship with Madigan: two imperfect people living in an imperfect world, whose romance is as tough as any Saturday night lust described in country songs they dance to holding each other tight as if hoping they might rise above their lives through sheer effort.
Director Louis Malle and screenwriter Alice Arlen are both fine observers of working class American life, as Malle showed in “Atlantic City,” Arlen did in her screenplay for “Silkwood.” Their trouble here is that there seem too many official mysteries about which we must learn the hard way.
Who’s right out there on the water? The Vietnamese, who can fish legally if they wish? Or the native Texans, who know where the shrimp are and rightly grow more resentful as Vietnamese follow them to good fishing spots and drop their own gear in same place?
Both sides have a point. Neither is definitely morally wrong, in my view “Alamo Bay” does not help by throwing in (as a wildcard) an organizer for Ku Klux Klan, who comes to town and meets secretly with Harris and other local fisherman; he tries to get them to attack Vietnamese. Harris listens but doesn’t seem fully committed; Madigan sides with her father, and tension between lovers becomes part politics, part melodrama.
Then movie ends with shoot-out that owes more to conventions of Hollywood action movies than any sincere desire resolve issues raised here.
What am I looking for in “Alamo Bay”? I do not need one party to be good and the other bad. The circumstances do not allow for it. But what I would have liked is if instead of resorting to such clichés as the Ku Klux Klan and a shoot out at the end, they had stayed with the film’s real strength, which is an honest picture of people’s lives.
Maybe there doesn’t have to be a resolution in this movie; maybe all we needed was Harris dealing with his situation with Madigan’s help or I don’t know maybe that wouldn’t have been a satisfying ending for that kind of movie, but it certainly would’ve been different.
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