Scott Cooper has a great movie in him – somewhere.
Hostiles, however, is yet another good movie from the director. Like his last few films, it’s a perfectly serviceable drama that occasionally approaches brilliance, but is held back by flaws and its own inability to stand out from its peers.
While Cooper’s films have always seemed inspired by westerns, Hostiles is his first traditional entry into the genre. Opening with two sequences of brutal violence and cruelty, Hostiles makes it clear from the beginning that it will not be an easy viewing experience. Set in 1882, Cooper’s story follows a deeply racist Army captain (Christian Bale) who is tasked with safely transporting a Cheyenne chief to freedom. Gathering a team of soldiers, but leaving the Native Americans he’s tasked with protecting in chains, the posse faces a variety of physical challenges along the way, but the film wisely focuses on the internal conflicts plaguing the characters.
Hollywood westerns have an unfortunate history when it comes to representation and how they’ve depicted Native Americans. Many ‘classic’ films from the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s, are outdated to the point where they’re almost unwatchable. These films are plagued with racist caricatures and stereotypes, offenses made even more glaring when you realize many of the actors in those films weren’t even Native American.
Modern westerns tend to do better, but only because they turn a blind eye to the racism of the era, or erase it from their narrative altogether – often by completely removing Native American actors from the cast list. Hostiles is no such film – it, in fact, centers heavily around the fact that society treated Native Americans horribly, and is unflinching in the way it depicts the racist attitudes of the time. This is the movie’s strongest quality: it’s exploring narrative territory that we haven’t trekked through a dozen other times, and carries a bit more dramatic weight than your average cowboy movie.
It’s worth noting, however, that the story hits some bumps along the way, particularly when it comes to pacing. Sitting at just over two hours, Hostiles could have trimmed its narrative by almost twenty minutes. Many scenes start to feel repetitive, particularly those that just focus on our main characters walking through scenic fields. There are multiple silent, drawn out moments in which Bale’s character emotionally processes his anger, but these sequences lose their impact every time it returns.
Its most glaring offense, however, is introducing its most interesting character halfway through the film, and only keeping him around for about fifteen minutes. The perpetually underrated Ben Foster steals scenes as a criminal being transported by the main characters, who serves as a symbol for all the disturbing acts of violence perpetuated by Christian Bale’s character. Is it on the nose? Sure. But it’s also effective, and should have been a part of the series’ entire story.
Luckily, even when the film drags, Cooper stacks his cast in such a way that it’s impossible to be bored. While this is one of Bale’s less showy roles, with a stoic demeanor that’s difficult to read, it still feels unlike everything that the Oscar winner had done before. As always, Bale’s performances are best judged in the context of his entire filmography; he’s never churned out a performance like this.
Elsewhere, Jesse Plemons and Rory Cochrane are given strong scenes to showcase their abilities, and Oscar nomine Timothée Chalamet even makes a brief, memorable appearance. The performance worth writing home about, however, is Rosamund Pike’s. As a widow who loses her children and husband in the opening scenes, only to form complicated connections with Bale’s character and a young Native American boy, Pike hits it out of the park.
There’s a lot to like about Hostiles, but not much to love – and that’s not because the film is disgustingly violent and uncompromising. This is a movie that gets so close to being great that its moments of mediocrity feel like personal attacks. No matter, Cooper is getting closer to his masterpiece. In the meantime, Hostiles will suffice.
Overall rating: 6 out of 10
