Hostiles

Cedar season is once again upon us and as you can imagine, it has absolutely floored me! I can’t see, breathe, smell, or feel anything but pain! And because it has completely incapacitated me, I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on the past; most of which has brought back some pretty sad memories. I looked back and realized that most of the people that I considered to be my heroes in life have either turned out to be complete scrubs, creeps, or in some cases both! And it was upon this realization that I immediately became angry and refused to acknowledge any positive contribution they’ve made to society. But as is always the case with me, I, for whatever reason, cannot hold a grudge! I start off on fire but I inevitably cave in and wind up forgiving them after simply sipping on a beer or two and listening to an old school Radiohead album.

We all know what allegedly happened between Michael Jackson and those kids at that ranch of his but after thinking about it for a bit, I figured if something awful like that really took place, there’s no way in hell a Macaulay Culkin would have ended up with Mila Kulnis. After an experience like that, you either turn into Pee Wee Herman and get caught jerking off in a porn theater or you end up married to Oprah Winfrey and wind up jerking off in your own private theater, while Gayle watches of course; there really is no in between. And while neither of those actually sound all that bad, they are still a far cry from the Russian beauty that is Kulnis!

Bill Cosby is yet another hero of mine who let me down but he also gave me Lisa Bonet so that automatically gives him a free pass. Now Christian Bale’s antics on the other hand, took quite a bit longer for me to forgive and forget. Is it simply because he’s a pompous white male? No but that certainly is a fair question for you to ask. It took me longer to forgive Bale because he played the role of Batman, yet another childhood hero of mine. Was he the best Batman ever? No but The Dark Knight is easily the best Batman film to ever grace the big screen and you certainly expect someone who is a part of something that big to carry themselves in a respectable manner. You can’t be caught on camera berating the behind the scenes people who helped you get your $15 million per movie. Now is this the same as getting little kids drunk or serving women roofi coladas just so they’ll have sex with you? No but neither of those actions led to the making of Terminator Salvation! How can you ruin the Terminator franchise with just one film?!?! It’s an American treasure; the Sci-Fi version of Huck Finn! This is nearly an impossible feat!

Well once I ran into Bale at the Austin City Limits Music Festival and witnessed just how awesome he was being to a little kid who simply wanted to meet Batman, I immediately forgot about his tirade and forgave the guy who also ruined Michael Mann’s (Heat, Last of the Mohicans) career with his performance in Public Enemies. And this is what the movie Hostiles is all about; facing those who have done you wrong and trying to find it in your heart to forgive them. In Hostiles, writer/director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Black Mass) gives us a Western that is not only beautifully shot but is also reflective and atmospheric. And instead of simply copying some of its genre’s most world renowned classics, he instead uses those films as inspiration to build off of.

In it, Bale plays Captain Joseph J. Blocker, a Union soldier who is visibly worn down and almost defeated after years of war and corralling hostile Native Americans in the Western United States. He has become a legend of sorts for both his acts in the field of battle and for taking down some of the country’s fiercest tribal leaders, one of which happens to be his biggest rival, Chief Yellow Hawk. Hawk has killed and scalped some of Blocker’s closest friends while also brutally murdering anyone he and his tribe considered to be invaders of their land. Now some would argue that they had every right to do so seeing as how this land belonged to them in the first place but for Blocker, political reasons didn’t play a role in his feelings at all. All he witnessed was the death of his friends and the savage murder of innocent women and children. So this is purely personal for him. Well as fate would have it, his final assignment as a member of the U.S. army is to escort Yellow Hawk and his family back to their homeland so that he can die in peace. This is strictly a P.R. move for a country that is facing its fair share of scrutiny for the way it has handled Native Americans in both the taking of their land and the treatment of them after their capture.

Well as you can imagine, the icy relationship that exists between the two almost comes to a head on many occasions but once they run into Rosalie Quaid (Rosamund Pike), a recently widowed woman who had to witness the brutal murder her entire family by an Apache tribe, Blocker is forced to reconsider his view of Hawk. This blood thirsty tribe is still out there and they have proven that they don’t live by an honorable code of any sort; so they will kill anyone who gets in the way of whatever it is that they want. Does Blocker continue to treat Hawk like a dangerous prisoner who can kill him at any moment or can he trust him and his family to help him fight off these wild Apaches?

Now keep in mind what I mentioned earlier, this is not your traditional Western; it takes its time in telling its story and sometimes it simply uses shots of the landscape to help in doing so. There are some killer shootout scenes in it but there are also quite a few moments where the film seemingly creeps its way to a slow halt. Perhaps a better editing team could have helped in this regard but it’s not like you’re watching the four and half hour long Dances with Wolves or the 10 hour long Wyatt Earp; you’re watching a wonderfully told story of love, family, regret, and forgiveness all wrapped in one!

I must admit that it’s refreshing to not see a Western that has Johnny Depp playing the role of an Indian with a stupid dead bird on his head! I mean, seriously, I think he had one too many go rounds with the peyote out there at The Joshua Tree. So once you take into account the fact that Hollywood didn’t force any of its typical racism in this film, you can’t help but give Hostiles a rating of FRESH!