Well, lookee here - if old Ang Lee ain't dug up another one o' them stories about America that America don't want to hear about.

First he found rotten bits in the country’s apple-pie family values in The Ice Storm, and now he’s suggestin' that cowboys – those icons of American manhood – ain't all as straight-shootin' as John Wayne and Henry Fonda.

What we got here is Ennis (Ledger) and Jack (Gyllenhaal), two strappin' young ranch-hands sent to mind a heck-load of sheep in the summer of 1963 for rancher Aguirre (Randy Quaid).

After spending a few months up on Brokeback Mountain with nothing for company but cigarettes, beans and sheep, the boys finally get to sharing a tent. And dang, if they don't end up all over each other like a coupla coneys in a cornfield.

Folks don't take kindly to that kinda thing, so Ennis and Jack keep their relationship a secret. For one thing, Ennis is due to marry his li'l lady Alma (former Dawson’s Creeker Williams) when he gets home.

But as Ennis drifts into family life and Jack settles down in Texas with pretty rodeo gal Lureen (Hathaway, The Princess Diaries), they just can't shed their feelings for one another.

Over the next 20 years, they head back to Brokeback for regular 'fishing' trips. Thing is - Alma knows.

Jack wants them to build a life together but Ennis has to play the realist: "It ain’t ever gonna be that way". Inevitably, whenever they're apart, both men struggle to keep their frustrations in check and some things have to give.

Yessiree, this is the kinda movie that has 'Oscar' branded into it - a western epic with a dramatic back-drop... and a twist. There ain't many Hollywood romances where both lovers constantly need a shave, but the scenery sure looks good.

And doggone-it, that boy Ledger can act! He gets Ennis just right - strong and silent yet tense and confused. Gyllenhaal's performance, however, becomes less convincing as his character ages. Must be those dodgy sideburns.

Like an open-air fire, Brokeback Mountain is something to stare at while you think, but it fails to really twang the heart-strings. Still, the embers do glow for a while when it's all over.

Elliott Noble