‘Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter One’ Review: Costner Returns to the West

Kevin Costner in “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter One”.

Cannes film festival

Kevin Costner has been in the saddle long enough to know the difference between a big screen Western feature like Dance with wolvesa mini-series like Hatfields and McCoy or a long form like Yellow stone. All these projects were carried out by him and he carried them out well. Its connection to the quintessential Americana genre and the rugged lands it shelters is unmistakable. So why his sprawling tale of the new frontier, Horizon: an American saga, such clumsy work? It plays like a limited series rehashed as a movie, but more like a rushed rough cut than a ready release for any format.

Clocking in at a grueling three hours, this first part of a quartet of films is peppered with unnecessary scenes and characters that go nowhere, taking far too long to tie together its messy plot threads. Warner Bros. Chapter One will be released in US theaters on June 28, followed by Chapter Two on August 16 and Chapter Three reportedly going into production. A vigorous montage closes the first part with action-packed clips from the next episode, adding to the nagging feeling that we’re watching episodic television that has lost its way.

What’s most confusing coming from Costner is the uncomfortably long time it takes the film to show its sensitivity toward its Native characters. We are well in Horizon before the perspective on indigenous resistance was broadened to recognize that their murderous attacks on new settlements were a direct response to the occupation of their ancestral lands. It’s very confusing to see a Western in 2024 and find yourself thinking, “Wait, so the American Indians are the bad guys again?”

The throaty notes of John Debney’s score on the opening title card announce that we are about to watch A Work of Great Importance. It all began in Arizona’s San Pedro Valley in 1859, when three surveyors, including a young boy, drove stakes into the ground to mark a plot of land beside a river. Two indigenous children watching from the rocky hills wonder what the white people are doing and why they have come. The two adult Aboriginal brothers who appear soon after, Pionsenay (Owen Crow Shoe) and Taklishim (Tatanka Means), are not so much curious as seething with rage.

A few days later, a lone traveler found the corpses of the surveyors, with feathers placed next to their corpses as a warning. These stakes become crosses on their graves.

The action then shifts to Montana Territory, where Lucy (Jena Malone) empties a shotgun into James Sykes (Charles Halford), a man who clearly wronged her, then takes off with their baby. The harsh matriarch of the deceased’s family (Dale Dickey) sends her two sons, Caleb (Jamie Campbell Bower) and Junior (Job Beavers), to seek revenge and bring back her grandchild. One is a hot-headed idiot, the other is smarter and more controlled, plus he can wear a silver wolf stole.

Meanwhile, on the banks of the river, the new town of Horizon – announced on widely distributed leaflets – has sprung up right in front of these three tombs. But any sense of security is instantly erased when Pionsenay and Taklishim lead a deadly ambush. Acting against the advice of their father (Gregory Cruz), an elder of the White Mountain Apache tribe who warns of the inevitable cycle of violence, they kill any settlers unable to get to safety and burn the structures that have just been erected.

In the film’s most visceral sequence, the tribe members approach the Kittredge family home. With a handful of community members taking refuge there, father James (Tim Guinee) and his teenage son Nate (director Hayes Costner’s son) attempt to fend off the attackers while mother Frances (Sienna Miller ) and her daughter Lizzie (Georgia MacPhail) hide in a trapdoor under the floor.

The weakest part follows Russell (Etienne Kellici), a teenager who manages to outrun the Apache horsemen who pursue him, then later struggles with his conscience over how and against whom to avenge his losses. This thread seems like one thread too many, but it shows that the whites view all the native tribes as one enemy, which means that revenge is blind.

Working from a discursive script he co-wrote with Jon Baird, Costner is not at his best as a director with this kind of multi-branched narrative. It struggles to keep all the story boards turning, as characters are sidelined and resurface with too little connective tissue.

The film lasts almost an hour before Costner appears as Hayes Ellison, a taciturn loner described by one of the Sykes boys as a “tramp in the saddle.” The role allows Kev to play Clint to the fullest, conveying the inner conflict of a troubled man wanting to leave violence behind but skilled enough with a gun to handle it when provoked. Presumably, the character will reveal more layers and perhaps a backstory in chapter two.

Hayes is the character who begins to connect things when he wanders through a small commune and catches the attention of Marigold (Abbey Lee), who plays tricks to get by and babysits Lucy, now called Ellen and married to the good child Walter. Children (Michael Angarano). Marigold is an annoying character – stupid, whiny, opportunistic – and it’s a bit of a stretch that a man as carefree and lonely as Hayes would allow himself to be convinced to help her, putting them both in danger. Lee’s unconvincing performance does nothing to make Marigold more palatable.

Other characters include the cavalry summoned to Horizon after the massacre, sent by Colonel Houghton (Danny Huston) and led by Sgt. Major Riordan (Michael Rooker) and First Lieutenant Trent Gephardt (Sam Worthington), who slowly begin a romance towards the end of the film. Gephardt is the only person patient enough to explain to the people of Horizon why the Apaches are hostile to the idea of ​​sharing the lands they have hunted on for generations.

Despite the harsh conditions and extreme dangers associated with Western expansion, shipments of new settlers continued to arrive. One of them travels with military Captain Matthew Van Weyden (Luke Wilson), who lands the maddening position of de facto leader, handling disputes and ensuring everyone contributes to the workload. This surprises two overeducated but clueless Brits who are begging to be scalped, Juliette (Ella Hunt) and Hugh (Tom Payne).

Any of these storylines could have made for an hour of gripping television, but they don’t amount to much in this poorly stitched quilt, which rarely provides the space for anyone’s experiences to resonate. It also limits the ability for actors to infuse much dimensionality into their roles. Dialogue-driven scenes often seem stilted and lifeless; the characters played by Costner, Worthington, Miller and Malone show the most potential at this point.

The subtitle An American saga and some easy conjectures suggest that, as Horizon continues, the project will become a comprehensive picture of life on the frontier and its challenges, the constant threat of outlaws and native attacks, and the injustices against the natives who indelibly stained the western soil. Hopefully it will also gain some much-needed structure.

Meanwhile, the film features beautifully photographed pristine American landscapes, with red cliffs, verdant valleys and vast plains providing striking backdrops. (As is often the case, the Utah locations stand in for various parts of the Southwest and Montana.) The period design elements evoke the setting in a more than helpful way.

For many Western lovers of a certain age, Costner in a slinky role will be a reassuring presence. He’s never been a broad-spectrum actor, but he’s always been attractive, even when he arrives late, as here, and remains rather sullen. Don’t get your hopes up too much.