Dir: Scott Cooper | Writer: Cast: Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi, Peter Mullan, Scott Shepherd Rory Cochrane, Jonathan Majors | Western | US | 133′
There’s a lot to be learnt from the legendary Western directors such as Sergio Leone, John Ford, Anthony Mann or Howard Hawks. Incendiary themes of ethnic cleansing and Colonialism are always ways handled with a touch of charisma or even dark humour that Scott Cooper’s philosophical but often laborious tale of how the West was won, has failed to register. And although Cooper adds a modern twist that sees the US Army acknowledging its racism and violence towards the frontier tribes, adding a modern twist of reconciliation between the age-old rivals: the white settlers and the Native Americans, HOSTILES is a film that completely lacks charm, although as sly slick of humour is almost perceptible in the final moments. The white characters are emotionally stoic and one-dimensional despite their generous screen time, whilst their Native American counterparts simply serve the narrative as silent underwritten cyphers. To his credit Big Chief exudes tremendous dignity by his presence alone. But has few lines.
HOSTILES is a stunningly mounted and often poetic widescreen frontier epic that thoughtfully explores the fraught tensions between white men and Native Americans, and remains reasonably engrossing throughout its slow-burning 132 minutes. There’s little subtlety to its depiction of the tribal types: Comanche are shown as brutish marauders whilst the Cheyennes appear to have hidden depths of spirituality, despite their bouts savagery. This is hard-edged stuff that opens with the Comanches burning down and looting a ranch belonging to a white family. The father is scalped, the three children shot dead while mother Rosalee Quaid (Pike) embarks on a sole journey for survival where she meets Christian Bale’s retiring Army caption Capt. Joseph Blocker who is tasked, against his will, with accompanying Chief Yellow Hawk and his family, and later a convicted felon across the arid wilderness to safety. Blocker is threatened with losing his pension, and has many reasons to hate the Chief for his barbaric acts towards white men. Few survive the ordeal and although Cooper’s premise attempts have the rivals bury the hatchet through comradeship during their travails, the transition from foe to friendship is unconvincingly portrayed: Pike’s character is one minute mourning her murdered kin, and only a few scenes later accepting an intimate olive branch provided by the Native American Haw.
HOSTILES is based on a ‘manucript’ penned by The Hunt for Red October writer Donald Stewart. And it feels progressive despite its later 19th century setting. One scene features a convivial dinner where Blocker sits through a bleeding Liberal speech delivered by the goodly wife (Robin Malcolm) of Peter Mullan’s Lt. Colonel Ross McCowan. And there’s quiet contemplation to be found in DoP Masanobu Takayanagi’s glowing landscapes and Max Richter’s lowkey atmospheric score that allow breathing space amidst the worthiness of it all. Rosamund Pike shows a woman’s capacity to thaw and adjust emotionally to her tragic circumstances but then Christian Bale’s crusty Captain offers her protection and potentially something more promising between the sheets once his buttoned up exterior feels the warmth of her appeal. Shame therefore that the Native Americans were so scalped of personalities here despite the initial promise of a progressive Western. MT
ON RELEASE FROM 5 January 2018
https://youtu.be/wuZcyScmW_k