Hostiles (2017)

[Robert Crawford]

Title: Hostiles (2017)

Tagline: No peace without sacrifice

Genre: Drama, Western, History

Director: Scott Cooper

Cast: Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi, Jesse Plemons, Adam Beach, Rory Cochrane, Ben Foster, Stephen Lang, Timothée Chalamet, Jonathan Majors, Q'orianka Kilcher, Paul Anderson, Ryan Bingham, Peter Mullan, Robyn Malcolm, Scott Wilson, Bill Camp, John Benjamin Hickey, Scott Shepherd, Stafford Douglas, David Midthunder, Dicky Eklund Jr., Tanaya Beatty, Luce Rains, Scott G. Anderson, Christopher Hagen, Rod Rondeaux, Ava Cooper, Stella Cooper, Gray Wolf Herrera, Xavier Horsechief, Austin Rising, Boots Southerland, Brian Duffy, Richard Bucher, James Cady

Release: 2017-12-22

Runtime: 134

Plot: A legendary Native American-hating Army captain nearing retirement in 1892 is given one last assignment: to escort a Cheyenne chief and his family through dangerous territory back to his Montana reservation.

Thankfully, another Western with a really good cast. Looking forward to watching this one.

 

[Robert Crawford]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/movies/hostiles-review-christian-bale.html

 

[SamT]

Hostiles is the best Western since Unforgiven: EW review

 

[Edwin-S]

This is looking very promising. Seems to be a bit of renaissance going on with Westerns.

 

[Tino]

This is looking very promising. Seems to be a bit of renaissance going on with Westerns.

There has been since Dances With Wolves 27 years ago.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

What a treat to have basically an epic western again (it's long). The locales of New Mexico and Wyoming are breathtaking. It's basically a road trip movie through some nasty territory and encounters. Christian Bale gives one of his best tight-lipped performances. Rosemund Pike has to go through hell and back. And it's always great to have Wes Studi playing an even more tight-lipped noble chief.

Hey, get ready for a brutal trip through beautiful territory. And thank goodness it wasn't filmed in Hungary!

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

This film appears to be getting great notices and is making a lot of "best of 2017" lists...I am really excited for this one. I had posted a trailer for it a while back and it seems that trailer is gone and they cut a new trailer which Robert posted here. I think the new trailer is better than the old one.

 

[Robert Crawford]

An outstanding film, but very brutal. Bale's character

Spoiler

lost his humanity during his soldier career, but regain it with the help of Pike's character.

Great performances by both actors.

 

[bujaki]

An outstanding film, but very brutal. Bale's character

Spoiler

lost his humanity during his soldier career, but regain it with the help of Pike's character.

Great performances by both actors.

And Studi helps as well.

 

[Sam Posten]

Thumbs up but don’t go in expecting Dances with Wolves or LOTMohicans

 

[bujaki]

I went to see a movie called Hostiles, nothing else. I came out having seen one of the best films of the year, much better than the dreary Darkest Hour.

 

[Robert Crawford]

And Studi helps as well.

Studi was outstanding, but I was just talking about those two actors because of how that movie started and ended for those two characters.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Thumbs up but don’t go in expecting Dances with Wolves or LOTMohicans

To me, those two films are more epic films as this independent film tackles this Western subject matter on a much smaller scale. Despite the beauty of the country side, the brutality of Western life in 1892, overcomes what the landscape offered to people that lived there during those times.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I went to see a movie called Hostiles, nothing else. I came out having seen one of the best films of the year, much better than the dreary Darkest Hour.

I also felt this was one of the best films of the 2017 releases. It would certainly replace some of the films on the best picture list were I choosing. Beautifully shot and wonderfully acted. I think Pike should have received a best actress nod. All the acting is excellent but they are sort of understated performances. It is the story of a journey, Bale's character taking a Native American family to their home so Studi's chief can die there, but also about Bale's internal journey.

I suppose the one criticism of the film and the one that may determine how you feel about it is:

Spoiler: SPOILER

How in the short space of the trip to Montana Bale's Captain Blocker, a man that has spent his career both hating and slaughtering Indians and who vehemently refuses the order to escort Chief Yellow Hawk and his family on this mission...and who even as soon as he is out of sight of the fort makes a bid to kill Yellow Hawk by challenging him to a knife fight...becomes a man that seems not only to respect Yellow Hawk and his family but truly considers them friends. So, he goes from wanting to kill him the second they are out of sight of the fort to telling him a part of him dies when Yellow Hawk dies. That's a hell of a transformation...particularly since he is quite aware that Yellow Hawk killed a good friend of his. As Robert points out above though the key to this transformation is Blocker's witnessing the behavior of Pike's character. She makes an even more rapid transformation from a woman in severe shock at seeing her entire family slaughtered by a Comanche hunting party and that doubles over in horror when she discovers Blocker's party includes Native Americans to becoming quite attached to Chief Yellow Hawk's family and caring for them on the journey. Blocker appears very moved by this woman and her ability to accept Yellow Hawk and his family despite her brutal loss. This is all ground that needs to be covered in about 2 hours and 12 minutes and I totally bought into all of it...but I can see how some may find Captain Blocker and Mrs. Quaid a bit too quick to change. This actually feels like it could have been a much longer film as the story would support a longer running time.

So, I think how much you enjoy this may hinge on how much you accept what is in the spoiler above. I loved this film and it was fantastic to sit in a cinema watching a western of this quality.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Reggie,

Spoiler

Just remember that they traveled about 2000 miles on horseback and at times walking from southern Arizona to Montana. That's not like going on a Sunday drive in an SUV. Through deserts and mountain ranges. With them stopping and going, it probably took them close to three months to finish that journey. In those three months, they endure a lot of stuff together. Shared life and death experiences bonds people. Just talk to those that survived military action or some other near death experience. Three months together, night and day is a very long time. Furthermore, I think Booker deep down, had some of those thoughts inside him as a man who believed in the Bible, yet he did some horrible things in the execution of his duties. Furthermore, he knew that both sides had suffered unbearable loss over the course of his 20+ years as a soldier. As I stated earlier, he loss his humanity and was basically a broken man at the beginning of that journey. He recapture his humanity and was therefore able to walk in Yellow Hawk's shoes.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Yes, I agree with you, Robert. I think if people do criticize it for the reason I have in the spoiler they should consider we are seeing the condensed version of a long journey. I had no issue with it, I thought it was fantastic, but it occurred to me that others may.

Or maybe nobody will...I think I have only seen good things written about this film. I don't think many people around these parts have seen it yet though. I would recommend seeing this in a theater as it is beautiful seeing a western on the big screen.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Yes, I agree with you, Robert. I think if people do criticize it for the reason I have in the spoiler they should consider we are seeing the condensed version of a long journey. I had no issue with it, I thought it was fantastic, but it occurred to me that others may.

Or maybe nobody will...I think I have only seen good things written about this film. I don't think many people around these parts have seen it yet though. I would recommend seeing this in a theater as it is beautiful seeing a western on the big screen.

Yeah, I was going to see it again last night, but was too lazy to go back out in the winter cold. I'll probably try again either this weekend or early next week. I'm going to try to see it late at night because last time, I had too many older folks coming and going throughout the movie and also talking through it. Thank God for Movie Pass.

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

There's an interview with screenwriter Waldo Salt where he talks about his script for best picture winner Midnight Cowboy and explains that the entire story is really about taking a hopelessly selfish character, Buck (Jon Voight), pairing him with possibly the most pathetic character, Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) and taking his character arc just one inch - one simple little inch - to where he has the humanity to put his arm around the dead Rizzo at the end on the bus. That's what the entire film is about. Moving that character that short distance. But it's huge.

I don't think Blocker has as far to go in his inwardly outward journey through this story. It's just an inch, but it stretches as far as the Grand Canyon from where he started years before. And Bale does a great job of personifying that small huge step.

 

[Tino]

LOVE the very last shot.

 

[Robert Crawford]

LOVE the very last shot.

I did too because without doing that,

Spoiler

Blocker had no chance for happiness and probably would be dead soon. Being with her, he has a shot to finding some happiness.