Hostiles Movie Review - 21 April 2018
This is my entry for the movie review contest organized by @monajam. You can find the contest here
Christian Bale as Captain Joseph J. Blocker
Hostiles is a brutal display that leaves the audience in a shallow grave and perhaps better off since you can finally find peace from the end cycle of the cruelty of the old West. I think this line from the movie sums it up perfectly.
"Sometimes I envy the finality of death. The certainty. And I have to drive those thoughts away when I wake." Rosalie Quaid (Rosamund Pike)
These words from Quaid's might well be the anthem of this brutal, quiet, moving 1892 western, they harbinger the death of the Wild West and the birth of justice and equality as whites and Native Americans abandon slowly the death that brought little peace to either side. I was personally captivated by the story which leaves nowhere to hide from its brutal nature and even when you want to look away it continues pulling you into the savage nature of humankind.
While the runtime felt a bit long and things could have been wrapped up a bit earlier since there was plenty of unnecessary dialogue the movie remains a solid story which is beautifully portrayed by some great acting from the cast.
Summary
The film is set in 1892, and tells the story of Blocker a veteran of America’s ongoing wars in the newly settled West. He is a gruff man with a moustache that’s large and even larger ego. Blocker is avowedly racist and distrustful of Native Americans, though he speaks their languages and understands their territory better than any American soldier.
His self-loathing nature is put into question when he’s picked by his commanding officer to escort a dying Cheyenne chief, Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi), back to his tribal lands in Montana, despite personal enmity between the two over the horrors they inflicted on each other in battle. If you were being glib (and Cooper is occasionally guilty of being glib), you could call it an odd-couple drama of sorts.
My take on the movie
Hostile strips away the traditional notions of good guys and bad guys (You know lets play cowboys and indians with defined lines of which is which) on the American frontier.
It Instead digs into the poisonous effect of decades of colonial warfare against the continent’s indigenous people and gives you the extreme good and bad from both sides.
Even though it is a Western the film seeks to avoid many of the genre’s cliches in the beginning as you're allegiance is thrown back and forth between the characters. It nonetheless ends up playing up the well-worn story of noble Indians teaching important lessons to their American occupiers.
And since this is a movie directed by Scott Cooper (Black Mass, Crazy Heart, Out of the Furnace), the best way for everyone to learn those lessons is through scenes of gritty violence.
Hostiles will by no means go down as one of the great Western Films in recent years when compared to the likes Django, True Grit or the Magnificent 7 I still think it is well worth the watch and a welcomed change from the constant diet of comic book and remakes we're being fed by movie studios as of late.
Setting
Writer/director Scott Cooper knows a thing or two about the passing of time and custom with his poignant Crazy Heart, drives home the loss of the Indian's world, the cost to the US troops, and the bereft families on each side.
Cooper is at his best filming landscapes occasionally punctuated with John-Ford-like door framed shots and themes of abduction and reconciliation. The threats along the way are external and internal, often soldiers just as culpable as the "savages" they hunt.
Cooper's shots are generous to the beautiful faces, from Mrs. Quaid's lovely and the stoically-contemplative Joe's to the chief's landscaped leather. The ensemble is first-rate, especially the feisty Ben Foster as Sgt. Charles Wills.
Characters
I am a big fan of Christian Bale and think of him as a great actor along with Wes Studi and the criminally underused Steven Lang. Bale plays a Nathan Brittles type of part but instead of being sympathetic as John was he hates the native American people!
The journey is a tedious and treacherous one and by the time we go to Montana, you could see the tole the trek has taken on each character as they are physically and emotionally exhausted. Like his Black Mass, we get a lot of mumbling which makes it hard to follow at times.
I also feel the need to Rosamund Pike who gives a powerful performance as a grieving wife and mother who longs for revenge. As Rosalie, Rosamund takes through multiple stages of grief in a heart-wrenching performance.
Plot
In 1892, legendary Army Capt. Joseph Blocker reluctantly agrees to escort a dying Cheyenne war chief and his family back to their tribal land. Embarking on a harrowing and perilous journey from Fort Berringer, N.M., to the grasslands of Montana, they soon encounter a young widow whose family was killed on the plains. The travellers must now band together to survive a punishing landscape that's crawling with hostile Comanches and vicious outliers.
The slow scenes were dragged out to be too long. The actors did well to keep viewers engaged, especially Bale. There were also several historical inaccuracies such as train availability and the absurdity of the Army keeping a tag-along woman with them for the duration of the journey.
Without giving too much away the ending scene was ridiculous and hard to believe that after all you've been through you would make such rash decisions. Weirdly enough, the final scene has a sense of love a 'happy' ending to a movie that really didn't deserve one, it really did not fit with the rest of the movie, not after all these characters have been though, seemed a bit off and leaves the viewer a little unsatisfied.
Trailer for Hostiles
For more movie reviews
Follow me for more movie reviews @chekohler
Recommended posts
If you enjoyed this review then check out previous reviews I've done