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| Similarities, hostilities, black and white notions ... are indicated as thematic material on this poster for Scott Cooper's Hostiles |
An Indian-hating army captain gets as assignment to lead a Cheyenne chief and his family through dangerous terrain in order for them to be set free. But on the way they meet a victim from a massacre.
Hostiles is written by Donald E. Stewart (Missing (1982)) and co-writer/co-producer/director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart (2009)).
The film stays gripping and very promising for a long time for a western-lover. Christian Bale (Knight of Cups (2015)) is good as the hard, bearded captain, and the scenery is outstandingly handsome. Cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi's (Black Mass (2015)) images beautifully capture the magic of the West's wide open spaces.
The more disappointing it gets when the film keels over into pompous self-seriousness, since Cooper now wants to strike home a point about racism and the negativity of violence: SPOILER By letting Bale (and Rosamund Pike (Radioactive (2019)) as the woman who loses her family to the Indians) risk their lives for the Cheyenne family, whom they now feel as bodyguards for! That is not credible, and the film becomes overlong to boot, ultimately a disappointment.
Related posts:
Scott Cooper: 2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Crazy Heart (2009) or, The Weary Kind
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 39 mil. $
Box office: 35.6 mil. $
= Huge flop (returned 0.91 times its cost)
[Hostiles premiered 2 September (Telluride Film Festival) and runs 133 minutes. Shooting took place from July - September 2016 in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. The film opened #36 to a 22k $ first weekend in 3 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #3 and in 2,934 theaters (different weeks), grossing 29.8 mil. $ (83.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 2.9 mil. $ (8.1 %) and the UK with 1 mil. $ (2.8 %). Cooper returned with Antlers (2021). Bale returned with a voice performance in Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018, VoD) and theatrically in Vice (2018); Wes Studi (A Love Song (2022)) in A Dog's Way Home (2019); and Pike in Beirut (2018). Hostiles is fresh at 70 % with a 6.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of Hostiles?
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