By Emilio Frenk.
Director: Scott Cooper
Cast: Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi, Stephen Lang, Rory Cochrane, Adam Beach, Peter Mullan, Scott Shepherd, Jesse Plemons, Jonathan Majors, Scott Wilson Timothée Chalamet and Ben Foster
Rating: Excellent.
Scott Cooper, director of “Crazy Heart”, “Out of the Furnace” and “Black Mass” brings his fourth feature film “Hostiles” and again he delivered.
Based in the year 1892, the movie centers in Captain Joseph J. Blocker (Christian Bale) who has one last order before retirement, which consists in escorting a Cheyenne War Chief called Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) and his family to the tribal lands of Montana.
Blocker reluctantly agrees since he has some bad blood with the Chief. While there are on the trip, they will meet Rosalie Quaid (Rosamund Pike) a widow who lost her family due to a Comanche attack.
Now Blocker with Yellow Hawk and Rosalie will go into dangerous territory to get to Montana, where Yellow Hawk will try to die in peace.
The thing that I really liked in “Hostiles” was the story itself. Scott Cooper wrote a very original screenplay that has rich characters and immediately we are identified with every single one of them from the moment it starts to the end of the film.
One of the seals of Scott Cooper`s film is to show the frustration, resentment in his main characters and here was not the exception.
Christian Bale plays in Joseph J. Blocker a Captain with a lot of anger and resentment towards War Chiefs and you can see that side from him in the minute that he is asked for his final mission.
Another theme that Cooper manages very well is redemption. We saw that in “Crazy Heart” where Jeff Bridge´s character tries to redeem himself, “Out of the Furnace” has that by moments and here, which by the way is the third movie that Cooper wrote of the four he has on his career.
The screenplay was written with a lot of detail and I can see that Cooper had a lot of influence in movies like “Unforgiven” and some of the Sergio Leone film´s like “Once Upon a Time in the West”, “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” and others.
The cinematography by Masanobu Takayanagi was impeccable and he shot a beautiful film. I loved how with his camera work captured the landscapes and how with he played with the contrasts on every single one of the scenes and characters.
Every shot in “Hostiles” has a meaning, every framing and Cooper had a remarkable direction here.
I´m surprised that this movie was not considered in this upcoming Awards seasons since it had many good elements like the theme in terms of story and elements like Costume Design and Cinematography.
The only thing that could be an issue for a viewer is the length of the film. I think that works but Scott Cooper´s films can have the tendency of having a slow pace but there is a reason for that and it definitely works.
The climactic scene in the film is very well shot and it´s a very good example of how to show tension in a film.
I had high hopes for “Hostiles” and I was not disappointed. So far Scott Cooper has directed four very good films and I hope he continues into this path.
“Hostiles” is one film that I highly recommend for it´s theme, performances of Christian Bale, Wes Studi and Rosamund Pike and for it´s cinematography.