Hostiles

Hostiles (2017) is set in 1892. An army captain who fought the tribes and hates them is given one last assignment: escort a dying Cheyenne chief and his family back to their land in Montana. He tries to refuse and accepts only to protect his pension. What the film attempts is not easy. Blocker's hatred is real and the film does not absolve him in the first scene; across the journey the change is slow, partial, and sometimes reverses. Equally, the chief's family is never obliged to forgive him. Scott Cooper directed. Christian Bale plays the captain, Wes Studi plays Chief Yellow Hawk, and Rosamund Pike plays a woman whose family has been killed. Studi's presence is decisive in how seriously the film can be taken; he has watched from the inside for nearly forty years how native roles get written in American cinema. The opening scene is the hardest part of the film and sets the terms: this is a world in which nobody is innocent. It runs 134 minutes. Good for: the modern western, morally slow narratives, and Christian Bale. Less good for: the violence is heavy and the opening is brutal. The pace is deliberately slow and in many scenes the film is simply walking. Rosamund Pike's grief drops out of the story past a certain point.