Hostiles - a review

Find the info on this film here, if you're interested.

This is the new Christian Bale film, written and directed by Scott Cooper. It's a Western, much on the order of Eastwood's Unforgiven.

The premise is army Captain Joseph Walker (Bale) is given command of a detail to escort his old enemy, Apache Chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) back to his old homeland in Montana before he dies of cancer. The story is Walker and Yellow Hawk hate each other, and both of them have good reasons for it, but Walker knows the Apache dialect, knows the territory, and is the only person for the job.

There are a lot of things I love about this movie.

I love that it isn't "quotable." There aren't any zingers or one-liners. There shouldn't be. That sort of thing trivializes a movie.

I love Christian Bale's understated performance. He was amazing. I love Wes Studi, as well, but that almost goes without saying.

I loved the way the film deals with raw, fresh, still bleeding grief. That's one of the most intense things about it, and made some scenes difficult to watch. Again, I loved it, even as I was squirming in my seat, wanting to look away but unable to make myself do so.

I love how the violence in this film was not gratuitous. You know most of the people who get hurt or killed, and each time, it resonates. Again, no quips, no one-liners. Just sudden, deadly violence that sometimes comes out of nowhere.

I love how the fight scenes and gun battles don't look stylish and choreographed. It's just people who have decided to try to kill each other. They ain't dancing. That's real violence--ugly and unpredictable as it is.

I loved the score, by Max Richter--understated or missing entirely for the most part, but rising to the occasion when necessary.

I loved how Rosalie (Rosamund Pike) could differentiate between Yellow Hawk and his family, and the Comanche raiders who attacked and massacred her family.

Some things I didn't love so much:

I wish more of the focus had been on the relationship between Walker and Yellow Hawk. I get the feeling earlier drafts of the script did have more of that but as rewrites happened the scope broadened until that became a little bit secondary. There's still a lot in there, but I wish there were more.

The very last scene--I hated it. To me it was the worst thing in the movie. I won't give details, but it's something that was inevitable, considering the events of the movie, yet Cooper's screenplay tried to toy with audience expectations to make it seem like it wasn't going to happen. It's just a missed opportunity, I think.

There's a story arc in the second act involving some trappers that I think was added late in the revision process. Certainly seems that way. It could have used a little more work, too. It felt like it was grafted on, almost like it was written by someone else.

Overall, I can recommend this one. I'll give it a B+. Had to give it a ding for that ending. Other than that, great film. Go see it.