Hostiles ★★★½
DIRECTOR Scott Cooper has a 100 percent success rate with his four films to date.
Crazy Heart (2009), Out of the Furnace (2013), Black Mass (2015) and now Hostiles (2018) all point to a varied output and consistent quality.
The revisionist western Hostiles, starring Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike, may be Cooper’s best.
On the surface the story suggests a loose remake of the Howard Hawks’ 1948 classic Red River combined with the revisionist approach of ‘70s westerns like Little Big Man and Soldier Blue.
But the script by Cooper and Donald E. Stewart also contains strong parallels to modern, complex questions over forced migration, refugee resettlement and the war on terror.
Japanese cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi, who also shot two of Cooper’s previous films, demonstrates both a fascination and affinity to the authentic locations in New Mexico and Arizona that have largely remained untouched since the era being depicted.
The film has a carefully chosen cast led by the great Bale who plays US Army Captain Joseph Blocker, renowned as much for his ruthless approach to the job as his ability to get results.
That ‘job’ has been to clear a safe path for the white man through Native American territory, killing with the same or greater force as the Indian resistance.
But the world is changing with growing concern in key quarters of American society at the continuing inhumane treatment of the indigenous population and a desire for a more peaceful resolution and path forward.
This change has journeyed all the way to the White House with a Presidential pardon granted to an Indian leader who has been held in custody with his family for seven years.
Much to his shock and dismay, Blocker is ordered to accompany the now cancer-ridden Chief Yellow Hawk and his family safely back to his traditional homeland of Montana’s Valley of the Bears where he can die with some level of dignity.
The dynamic within the group and between Blocker and Yellow Hawk is on a knife’s edge as they embark on the dangerous trek.
It is complicated further when they come across the only survivor of a frontier family following a massacre by a marauding Commanche group.
Rosamund Pyke gives arguably the best performance of her career, Gone Girl included, as Rosalee who, along with Blocker and Yellow Hawk, is forced to question personal ideals and try to set aside prejudices in order to change.
Wes Studi is a quietly powerful presence as Yellow Hawk while supporting cast members Jesse Plemons, Timothy Chalamee, Stephen Lang, Bill Camp and Ben Foster all make small but imoortant contributions to a complex, powerful and under-statedly moving story.
Hostiles is one of the best, thought-provoking westerns in some time.