Hostiles

Writer-director Scott Cooper’s first stab at the Western is Hostiles, a harsh, slow-burning frontier epic with muscle and heart. Along with his co-writer Donald Stewart, Cooper finds fresh, undeniable relevance in late-19th-century horrors of white men’s unforgivable sins against the Indigenous people of America.

“The film follows Joseph Blocker (Christian Bale, quiet with tense authority), a prominent Army Captain tasked against his wishes to accompany the terminally ill Cheyenne war chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) and his family on a journey between New Mexico and Montana. There, Yellow Hawk’s descendants are due to be imprisoned. Joined by the shell-shocked Rosalie (Rosamund Pike in a career-best performance), the only survivor of a family murdered by the Comanche, Blocker’s company steadily grows in complexity. With bodies lost at every turn, these unlikely fellow travelers realize that their survival depends on unity.

“Stunningly filmed by cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi in the expansive tradition of the genre, Hostiles romanticizes vast landscapes and crimson-hued horizons. At times, you'll find yourself wanting more of the perspective of the Cheyenne, but Cooper still does right by his story of historical reconciliation, charting Blocker’s moral transformation plausibly. Hostiles‘ disarming finale packs an earned, radiantly optimistic punch.” - Time Out