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By Sandra Olmsted

In writer/director Scott Cooper’s Hostiles, brutalities beget brutalities, and the tropes of the classical Western are retold with more focus on the emotional consequences to those who settled in the West than traditionally done, but not to those whose land was taken. How stoic would the lone survivor, once a wife and mother, of an Apache raid really be? What would be the effect on the cavalry soldiers who clean up and bring the perpetrators to justice? At what point would the soldiers become as brutal as the “enemy” they must hunt? Unfortunately, Cooper opens the film with the massacre of Rosalie Quaid’s (Rosamund Pike) family, setting the tone for the film of justifying military genocide.

“When the President asks, a man’s got to do it,” and the soon-to-retire Capt. Joseph J. Blocker (Christian Bale) must take cancer-ridden Chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi), a personal enemy,  and his family home to Montana. On the long trek from New Mexico to the Valley of the Bears, Blocker and his oldest friend, Master Sgt. Thomas Metz (Rory Cochrane), confront a changing cross section of the 1890s American West and rethink their actions in the Indian Wars. On the way, Blocker’s column rescues Rosalie, who sits in her burnt out home with her “sleeping” children. Soon, the Apaches attack column, killing Pvt. Philippe DeJardin (Timothée Chalamet) and wounding Henry Woodson (Jonathan Majors). At Fort Winslow, Blocker agrees to take Sgt. Charles Wills  (Ben Foster), an ex-soldier turned axe-murderer, to prison, which leads to more discussion of a life spent killing.

While the dramatic character study of Blocker is compelling, the Native Americans, such as those played by Q’orianka Kilcher, Studi, and Adam Beach (pictured left top), are never given the same examination of their pasts as Blocker and Metz. Cooper does address symbolically the racial divides in America today, much as John Ford did in his Westerns. However, anyone who thinks Hostiles is a truly revisionist take on the classic studio Western has never truly understood John Ford’s The Searchers, which negotiates much of the same territory but with less focus on emotional consequences. Hostiles, an Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures release, is rated R for strong violence, and language and runs 134 contemplative minutes. Hostiles officially opens Jan. 26 and in some theaters Jan. 25.

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

Adam Beach, Q’orianka Kilcher, and Wes Studi in Hostiles.

Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike in Hostiles.

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