Hostiles
/"Sometimes I envy the finality of death. The certainty. And I have to drive those thoughts away when I wake."
Filmology Rating: 2.5 out of 4
The Western is the only genre that Americans can truly say they created. It has created myths and legends that will last a lifetime, and it will continue to be a social commentary for our ever changing world.
Captain Joseph Blocker, played by Christian Bale, has been tasked with taking Chief Yellow Hawk, played by Wes Studi, to his native homeland in Montana. Blocker reluctantly agrees anticipating that after he completes his assignment he will be able to retire. The journey was never meant to be easy as the team runs into difficult obstacles along the way with ever changing alliances that make you question who the villains truly are in history.
The film starts with a tremendous amount of violence involving the killing of three children, all in which is shown before the title card appears, which left me with the feeling that the film would be a take no prisoners type of film. That the director, Scott Cooper, would be willing to show every act of indecency and maliverent violence that would make you as an audience member squirm in your seat but the film is never able to tackle the uncomfortableness I felt during the opening scene. It seems odd to say that a highlight of a film is an act of cruelty but it’s that act that makes your heart sink and for you to feel the rage building inside. You simply need a release for all of that anger but the film will never give it to you. Hostiles thrives on the anger that is being built up within its audience and it prays that you will never let it go.
Hostiles is a film that offers many themes that even an average moviegoer has seen a plethora of times before: from the man who is just following orders; as seen in films like X-Men: First Class and Compliance, the man who thought he knew who his true enemy was but turns out to be gravely mistaken; as seen in films like The Revenant and Pocahontas, war makes animals out of us all; as seen in Apocalypse Now and Platoon; I could continue to name tropes that the movie hits but I find that to be rather redundant at this point. Hostiles is clearly trying to bite off more than it can chew and it needed to crystalize one of its many themes before trying to jump to another, it becomes infirating since the film has messages that could be interesting and thought provoking, but are just simple thoughts that pass each time the wind changes direction.
It’s hard to believe that Christian Bale is giving a rather singular performance in Hostiles since I have always considered him to be one of the greatest thespians working today. While Captain Blocker is meant to be a man who has become hollow because of war, I still wish I could have seen the moments in which Blocker had the change in empathy. As an audience member I felt my allegiances drastically change from moment to moment but I never felt the character changes were earned. It would seem that the best acting Bale can do lately is grunt and stare, I expect more from the man who has made me care about heists and caped crusaders, but it would seem that Bale’s best days are behind him. As for the female lead of the film, Rosamund Pike, most of her scenes are great but some come across as laughable. I would never consider myself to be a sadist but some might call me that since I found the scene where she is grasping onto the Earth, trying to tear her very reality apart with grief to be laughable and played so over the top that I couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. Rosalie never loses my sympathy since even the thought of losing ones family is heartbreaking and the actual act of it happening would be world breaking but the manner in which it’s portrayed, to me, is over dramatic work at its finest.
I’ve been struggling with the score for this film by Max Richter, who also composed the score for Wadjda and The Congress. The Western genre has given some of the best film scores to date from the John Barry score in Dances with Wolves to the classic score for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly by Ennio Morricone but the score for Hostiles tries to be more atmospheric than epic. The major reason why I fault the score for this film is because it tells me how I should be feeling before any actual action has taken place. Why have actors actually act when the score is implying all of the emotion. The score itself is adequate and I don’t want to fault Richter for it but within the context that it’s used during the film I found it to be distracting and it took away from the acting which was occurring on screen.
When the credits for the film started and it stated Scott Cooper for a few seconds before stating that he wrote and directed the film, I was left feeling flabbergasted. It feels like having his name appear for a few seconds alone by itself without any context is a grandiose statement but when the product you just watched doesn’t back up that statement you are left feeling like you watched the work of a giant egomaniac. Granted most who work in the art field have some case of narcissism but Cooper seems to have a grand case of it since he has yet to make a film that feels complete and worth the hype that was built up for the film. I cannot recall a director who has delivered such promise with all of his films but fails to deliver a cohesive product. If I was shown only a clip reel of Hostiles I would have felt feeling that the film worked completely and offered a message that I felt relevant and refreshing, but instead I left feeling like I had seen this film a countless number of times before.
While it might seem that I found Hostiles to be one of the most complacent films I have seen lately that in reality isn’t the case, it’s simply one of the most frustrating films. After an opening that had me on the edge of my seat wondering what would happen next, it was quickly tossed away for an average Western that thrilled audiences decades ago. Nothing in Hostiles is bad per say but everything about it is average and with the talent that the film showcases you should expect something better than average.
Rating: Rent It
-Jonny G