I think the answer lies in McCarthy's descriptions of the vast Texan and Mexican landscapes. From pulps, movies and TV westerns we share a heavily romanticized image of these vistas; with conversational and metaphysical pauses big enough to drive cattle through, McCarthy's spare, portentous prose does such a thorough job of aestheticizing these received images (but ruggedly, ruggedly -- no arty pansy airs for Cormac) that readers can fool themselves into believing they've been put in touch with our mythic past. McCarthy is better on width than on depth. His physical settings are spacious, but his characters are cutouts and his story an inch deep.

John Grady Cole (Matt Damon) is a young cowboy who makes his way to Mexico after the family ranch is sold out from under him by his scheming mother. (She's a city slicker and we all know that type has no connection to the land.) Along the way he and his buddy Lacey (Henry Thomas) meet and ride for a while with an unbalanced young hotshot (Lucas Black) whose temper will spell trouble down the road. When Grady and Lacey get work at the ranch of a powerful landowner (Ruben Blades), Grady falls for the boss's daughter (Penélope Cruz) despite the warnings that he is destroying her honor.

Maybe the mantle that McCarthy has assumed as the Flinty Loner of American Literature makes it easier for people to swallow his taciturn, macho hokum. In "All the Pretty Horses" a man's worth is determined by his ability to withstand physical punishment -- laid on the hero, once he ends up in a Mexican prison, like the Stations of the Cross. And a man's dedication to honor and honesty is valued chiefly for its ability to make his life a misery and thus give him an opportunity to suffer in stoic silence. This morally superior masochism reads like pulp for the "New York Review of Books" crowd -- that is, people who'd be too embarrassed to read Zane Grey or rent a John Wayne movie.

At just under two hours, Billy Bob Thornton's film of "All the Pretty Horses" is less than half of the original four-hour cut he delivered. (I've heard unconfirmed reports from several sources that Thornton has given this cut his approval.) You can sense things are missing. Some events happen not just unexpectedly but almost inexplicably. Glances and landscapes and spare conversations are lingered over, but a crucial event like the love story at the center of the film is not much more than an extended montage. And the hero's Mexican prison ordeal ends so abruptly that if you were seeing the movie on tape you'd be tempted to rewind to make sure you didn't miss anything.

The omissions and inconsistencies of this cut may work against Thornton's intentions and McCarthy's claims to grandeur -- they make the story less a Greek tragedy than the horse opera it is -- but they're a blessing for the audience.

At under two hours, the movie crawls by; at four, people would become fossilized to their seats. Thornton and screenwriter Ted Tally have obviously savored every gust of wind blowing through the canyons and the plains of McCarthy's novel without noticing the more, shall we say, pungent aroma emanating from his prose.

The dialogue is hilariously laconic -- "I cain't do it." "Well, if you cain't, you cain't" -- when it isn't dotted with little existential tumbleweeds a-tumblin' through: "You think you can believe there's a heaven if you don't believe in hell?" Or: "In the end, Mr. Cole, we all get cured of our sentiments. Those whom life doesn't cure, death will." Or (my favorite, from the Mexican jefe jailer): "Some crazee peeple can say dat God ees here. But God ees not here."

You got that right. The weight of myth sits on nearly every frame of the movie like a 400-pound gorilla. I'm sure if somebody hadn't stepped in, I'd be sitting in that screening room until after Christmas, looking at close-ups of crumpled packets of Pall Malls, and grime-encrusted hands, and broken-in working clothes, and worn-down Western diners, and tin plates of beans and cornbread -- get the idea? Thornton and screenwriter Tally OD on texture. Just about the only authentic element is Marty Stuart's simple, elegaic score, mostly guitar, mandolins, viola and accordions.

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