aAfter three hours of saddle soreness, Kevin Costner’s handsome but strangely languid new Western doesn’t accomplish much in terms of satisfying storytelling.
Granted, this is only the first in a multi-part saga that Costner will direct, co-write, and star in. But somehow nothing exciting is ever established in the various unresolved storylines, never leaving us in suspense for anything else.
In fact, this slow-paced epic suddenly accelerates into a very strange preview montage for part two. Costner speeds around punching people he’s never seen before. As if someone accidentally leaned on the fast-forward button, we watched the entire second section in 25 seconds.
It certainly starts with a gallop. Various conspiracies in Montana, Wyoming, and Kansas intertwine around a new white settler settlement called Horizon in the American West in the 1860s, and the Apaches are either unaware or unaware that they are not coming. It attracts countless able-bodied and naive people. Surrender this territory without a fight.
After a mysterious attempted murder of a man in a secluded cabin (this storyline is most noticeably deferred to explanation), one terrifying night the Apaches attack and burn down the Horizon settlement, killing many witnessing the murder of a man and the death of a man. Frances (Sienna Miller), the widow of a homesteader’s wife, leaves her children without a father. It’s a really fascinating sequence.
Retaliatory raiding parties are organized by obsessive trackers who are willing to capture the actual Apache (or any Native American) culprit in order to get revenge. They were reluctantly allowed by Unionist soldiers who resented the existence of the Horizon District, which was located in open land that was nearly impossible to defend.
They are led by the modest and handsome Lieutenant Trent Geppert (Sam Worthington), who is said to be romantically involved with Frances. Miller has to shift her character in an instant, from Frances’ sadness and horror as she witnesses her husband being murdered, to her amiable antics with the handsome Trent.
The Apaches, on the other hand, are deeply divided over what to do with the yarn from the settlers. The short-tempered young Piocenay (Owen Crowe Schue) is furious that his father does not take direct action.
In another story, a grueling wagon train led by Matthew Van Weyden (Luke Wilson) faces a lack of food and water, the ever-present danger of attack, and a lazy entitlement unwilling to shoulder his burdens. There is a harsh story where you have to deal with several British people.
Jena Malone plays a former prostitute who is now happily married, but she entrusts her young baby to another sex worker, Marigold (Abby Lee), and she and her husband are involved in a land deal with troublesome brothers (the Sykes brothers). Confront. There is already some violent beef in her family.
But the strangest and least convincing part concerns Kevin Costner’s character. Expressive and competent, not demonstrative in traditional style. This is the cool, slow-talking Hayes Ellison. He comes to town on horseback and immediately falls into a very strangely unconvincing and passionless relationship with Marigold (played by Lee, 36, and Costner, 69) on screen. After Hayes has a heated argument with Caleb Sykes (Jamie Campbell Bower), these unlikely romantics depart with their child, but an exhausted Hayes is apparently not keen on sex. However, Marigold seems to find him very attractive.
So the movie plods along, and aside from a few mildly distracting moments, it spends 180 hours keeping you guessing when and if it’s going to get interesting.
In some ways, Horizon reminded me of Costner’s 2003 western. open range, But it had a far more interesting performance by Costner and top-notch support from Robert Duvall and Michael Gambon. The acting here isn’t all that impressive, and it’s not very well directed. There’s nothing on the horizon here.
