We all know the story. John Ford’s The Searchers (1956) told it, as did George Stevens’s Shane (1953). From Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns to genre-bending films like 2017’s R-rated Marvel vehicle Logan (which is basically a remake of Shane), viewers have consistently been treated to stories of emotionally stubborn men who venture into dangerous territory for honor, family, loyalty or any combination of the three. Scott Cooper’s Hostiles attempts to mirror the familiarities of the western genre while also relaying this age-old story of mankind’s descent into moral and literal peril; however, it fails in both regards.
Our protagonist is Captain Joseph Blocker, played by Christian Bale in an admittedly stellar performance hindered by a directorial eye both uninteresting and overbearing. Writer/director Scott Cooper first debuted with the modest drama Crazy Heart, which won actor Jeff Bridges an Oscar, but has since moved on to creating far-reaching melodramas that are never once thought-provoking, emotionally-stimulating or even entertaining. After 2013’s underwhelming Out of the Furnace came the ghastly Black Mass, and now Cooper has brought us the dull-as-dirt Hostiles to continue his streak of exhaustively unengaging cinema with the visual appeal of Home Depot’s discount wallpaper section.
When Captain Blocker is asked to escort an imprisoned, dying Cheyenne war chief (Wes Studi) and his family back to their tribal lands for the chief’s burial, he reluctantly agrees—a decision he is most certainly tortured by. How do we know this? Cooper films Blocker sitting against his wall at night, staring into the abyss as the camera slowly zooms in on his pain. If that wasn’t enough, the movie makes sure to remind you moments later as Blocker screams into the sky while orchestral music builds and thunder crashes in response to his strenuous cries.
It’s all far too much, and this is balanced only by the times when the film is far too little. Hostiles sets up a treasure trove of interesting subject matter—a suicidal widow’s (Rosamund Pike) relationship with Blocker, the Cowboys-versus-Indians mentality of the film’s time and setting, the morality of Western justice—but it never digs deep enough. It shows you the menu and then brings you a tray full of napkins, promising substance yet delivering only paper-thin monotony.
This film drags like a stale cigarette, tasteless and tired. Its aesthetic palette continues Cooper’s fondness for dimly-lit and grimily-colored interior scenes, and while the exterior landscape shots are gorgeous, they always emit a whiff of visual karaoke (we’ve seen all these compositions before from dozens of western genre filmmakers). A poor decision by all who made it, the film also has a major issue with its white subtitles—they are perfectly lucid during nighttime scenes, but can often be rendered illegible when placed against a bright, exterior daytime shot. For a film with numerous scenes of Cheyenne dialogue exchanges, this is a baffling creative decision that only results in infuriation.
As does much of the film. Hostiles is a tedious, banal narrative captured through an equally dreary eye. Stretching to 133 minutes that feel like half a day, the film’s paths have been crossed so many times before that the horses may as well be trotting in trenches with their riders neck-deep in dirt.
Don’t get buried with them.
The post Hostiles appeared first on Spectrum Culture.