LEGENDS OF THE FALL confuses portent and blather with passion and
drama. It tracks the ultimate dissolution of the Ludlow family in the
Montana of the teens and '20s. One son is killed in World War 1, one
becomes a crazed wanderer, and the third becomes (gasp!) a member of
Congress. Direcotr Edward Zwick is so ensconced in the symbolic nature
of the materials that the film lacks exuberance and grace: It feels
like a proccesional. Watch Anthony Hopkins chew the fat as Colonel
Ludlow, who, after a stroke, seems to be impersonating Charles
Laughton in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". R **