Kevin Costner directed and stars in ‘Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 1,’ the first of four planned films
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
For Kevin Costner, the Western is home. His latest, not screened for the press, although it was shown in Cannes last spring, is “Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 1,” a tale of the movement West of American immigrant and freed slave settlers, beginning in the film in 1859. Planned as four separate films, “Horizon,” which Costner reportedly began developing in 1988, is the filmmaker’s “How the West Was Won” (1962) for a new generation. However, I cannot say that it is a very new or revisionist take on what happened when the primarily white immigrant waves Westward clashed with the Native populations, whose homes and hunting grounds were overrun.
The 181-minute film was written by newcomer John Baird, two-time Academy Award winner Costner (“Dances with Wolves” ), and Mark Kasdan (“Silverado”). Named after small leaflets we see on camera promising a settlement in the West, “Horizon” kicks off in the Montana Territory with a surly family known as the Sykes, whose leaders include matriarch Mrs. Sykes (the iconic Dale Dickey), while young Caleb Sykes (Jamie Campbell Bower) is a standard, gun-slinging, loose cannon. The Sykes, many of whom resemble male models in Western garb, enter and exit this story without making much of an impression. After several strands of narrative, we settle down with an immigrant family naively laying string lines alongside a river under the watchful eye of two hidden, young Indigenous males. In several John Ford-like developments, more immigrants arrive; an encampment of tents and wagons is thrown up. A celebration is underway, complete with a fiddle player, food, and dancing, and an Indigenous attack takes place. It is bloody, often gruesome and horrific, and features a siege on a family, the Kittredges, in their heavily barricaded wooden home. Frances Kittredge (Sienna Miller) and her daughter Elizabeth (Georgia MacPhail) survive. A virtuous Army lieutenant named Trent Gephart (Sam Worthington, “Avatar”) leads survivors to a more readily defended area away from the Apaches’ river crossing and closer to an Army fort.
The action shifts to Wyoming Territory and a mining town a few years later. Grizzled frontier veteran Hayes Ellison (Costner, making his entrance an hour in) looks forward to a bath. A young local woman of easy virtue, Marigold (Abbey Lee, “Fury Road”), offers her company. But Hayes will have to walk up a hillside to the home of Marigold’s friend Ellen Harvey (Jena Malone). Ellen and a man named Pickering (Giovanni Ribisi) have some business with the Sykes regarding Ellen’s blonde-haired toddler son. On his way up the hill, Hayes is waylaid by a threatening, blustery Caleb Sykes.
The screenplay is noteworthy for a lot of talk, violence, shootouts, chases, and questions we do not have answers to. A lot of action was shot in Monument Valley, Utah, a favorite John Ford location. The term “Indigenous” is used, apparently anachronistically, to describe Native Americans. A romance percolates between Frances and Lt. Gephart. While a climax of “Horizon—Chapter 1” is the massacre of the white settlers, we see no such similar treatment of the Indigenous. However, we do see white attackers scalp Indigenous victims. Perhaps more of that is to come. At a meeting of an Apache village, an elder argues that the whites are going to continue to arrive, and some kind of arrangement must be made. The meeting is typical of a screenplay with too much dialogue and not enough coherent, action-driven narrative.
Also in the cast are Luke Wilson, Michael Rooker, Tatanka Means, Danny Huston, Will Patton, James Russo, Jeff Fahey, and Costner’s son Hayes Costner. I hope they have more to do in the next three installments. This first film concludes with a slurry of montages, some involving characters we barely know. Composer John Debney (“The Greatest Showman”) is overfond of his horns. Do they really play “Amazing Grace” over the end credits? Yes.
It is worth noting that Costner broke out in the Western “Silverado” (1985) and “The Untouchables” (1987), playing a Western marshall in 20th-century garb. After the baseball twosome “Bull Durham” (1988) and “Field of Dreams” (1989), Costner directed and starred in the Academy Award-winning box-office sensation “Dances with Wolves” (1990). He followed that up with “Wyatt Earp” (1994).
In the past 20 years or so, Costner has directed and starred in the fine Western “Open Range” (2003) opposite Robert Duvall and then kick-started a fading career with the 2012 family feud miniseries “Hatfields & McCoys.” You might say that Costner is nearly as important to the American Western as John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. However, Costner’s acting is more reminiscent of the John Ford-period Henry Fonda or James Stewart’s collaboration with director Anthony Mann. Costner has more recently had his star reignited by “Yellowstone,” a Paramount Plus streaming phenomenon in which the actor plays modern-day cattle baron John Dutton. The 2018 series, which has spawned two spin-offs, was co-created by Taylor Sheridan, whose prodigious Western and neo-Western output has made him an industry powerhouse. Costner reportedly left “Yellowstone,” which he has since quit, to make “Horizon.” While I have learned not to underestimate Costner, I’m not sure it was worth it.
‘Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 1′
Rating: R for extreme violence, nudity, sexually suggestive scenes.
Cast: Kevin Costner, Sienna Miller, Jena Malone, Abbey Lee
Director: Costner
Writers: Costner, John Baird, Mark Kasdan
Running time: 181 minutes
Where to Watch: In theaters June 28
Grade: B-
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