HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA - CH. 1 (2024) MOVIE REVIEW
Kevin Costner's big swing is at times unwieldy juggling of various tales from the American frontier, but also an immensely competent and watchable piece of old school Hollywood filmmaking.
by Nate Lemann
It is almost impossible to talk about this movie; it so broad and sprawling, telling basically 4-5 separate stories in an intertwining fashion over three hours, without having any of the threads touch each other in this entry of the envisioned franchise (though, that may be in trouble given the news of the second chapter being pulled, for now, from theaters).
Best I can do is give brief glimpses at the “main” story arcs that Costner has charted out: what feels like the "A Story Line" is that of Sienna Miller’s Frances Kittredge, a woman who survives a terrible Native American raid, losing far too much to bear in the attack. We follow her as she attempts to pick up the pieces of her life under the protection of a Union outpost and its handsome lieutenant (Sam Worthington). There is the story of a ranch hand (Kevin Costner) who gets mixed up with a bitter blood feud and must take drastic action. Then we have Luke Wilson leading a settler wagon train across the country, doing everything in his power to protect his people and keep the peace. We also follow the treacherous journey of a bunch scalpers looking for revenge against the Natives who raided their camp, led by a great Scott Haze and Jeff Fahey. We are also given an all-too-brief glimpse of the other side of Settler/Native American conflict, showing the inner workings of an Apache tribe and the conflicting views on how to deal with the Settler problem rearing its ugly head.
While this films does feel very disconnected (and possibly even disjointed), I have to give it to Costner as a director because this movie looks really good and has some very memorable set pieces, with the Native American raid and a drawdown shootout being some of the best sequences you’ll see in a theater this year. I’d even go so far as to say that while there are so many subplots happening at once, Costner gets you to lock in with each storyline and keep you engaged, rather than wishing you were back with another plot thread.
Some of the standout performers are Michael Rooker as an Irish Union solider, the aforementioned Miller, Abby Lee as a pro with a childish streak, Jamie Campbell Bower as a wild child outlaw, Haze as a conflicted scalper, and Fahey as his more ruthless counterpart. Those characters are the only ones that are given more character depth and arc, while the other characters for this installment felt like they were just plot driven creatures, with their emotional payoff teased at the end of this film with a bizarre clip show/semi-trailer for the now pulled second chapter of this saga.
There is a lot of talk about whether Costner, who put substantial amount of his own wealth behind this picture, was better off trying to sell this to a streamer as a mini-series. While that may have been the more prudent move, I was very locked in for the theater experience with this, being treated to some of the best sweeping grand filmmaking this year outside of “Furiosa” and “Dune: Part Two”. I hope that once this first installment gets an audience on VOD, we get to return to this world Costner built back in theaters.
FINAL RATING: 4/5 Stars (Sweeping, grand western epic they just don’t make anymore)
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