Hostiles

Hostiles, a 2017 Scott Cooper movie came to Baltimore in late January 2018.  Scott Cooper I find tends to take on a variety of human interest stories of leads with a notorious past and a questionable future, but has more of a vague approach to plot lines, rather than neatly packing up his story lines.  Hostiles is no different in this respect, however takes on much of the potential positive change in the lead, as seen similarly in Crazy Heart.  Other of his films, Crazy Heat, Out of the Furnace, and Black Mass have a good build up to Hostiles, which I think is one of Cooper's better approaches in film.  This also, was Cooper's second film project with Christian Bale as a lead role.

Hostiles, like Black Mass, tackles a more historical approach.  While Black Mass, was more a biopic approach, Hostiles was more of a historical fiction approach.  The film is set in 1892, in New Mexico and Montana.  Legendary Army Captain Joseph Blocker must complete one final mission before he can retire.  He is to escort a dying Cheyenne war chief and his family to their tribal land.  Blocker assembles a team to assist in the journey from Fort Berringer, New Mexico, to the Great Bear Valley grasslands of Montana.  Early in their expedition, the corps encounter a young widow whose family was killed on the plains.  Blocker takes her into his corps of travelers, as they try to survive the punishing landscape, and hostile outliers and Comanches migrant tribes.

I had a variety of sentiments about this film.  As someone whom has been reading a lot recently on native tribes of the southwestern regions, I know the Comanches were originally a tribe of indigenous people to that region, many of these migrant and hostile tribes had left the regions Blocker and his men traveled as of the 1850's.  While it's not too far off date wise (not quite 50 years), and it's a work of historical fiction, the little details still matter, especially if it's going to be a topical regular theme in the movie.

Many western type movies have the classic, predictable approach of how native Americans are either complete blood thirsty savages, or stoic sages that don't say much but a few harrowing points.  While at many points throughout this movie, Hostiles, unfortunately was no different.  In that sense, this film fell short a bit.  There is a middle ground with a lot of tribes, but this was lost in translation with the film, as most of the character development growth came from the men taking the family back to their tribal land.  The backstory of the chief had presented some potential harshness to his past, but the film failed to explore the topic of change much beyond a few short discussions.

I appreciate the development of Blocker becoming more sympathetic to the native tribes, but part of me wonders about the time frame in the change in his character development.  For the late 1800's and even today, there is still much of a misunderstanding of many of the native cultures.  The DPAL pipeline discussion, or the lack there of, goes to show you there has not been much change in the treatment of many of the native cultures.  While it is refreshing to have Cooper approach the change in attitudes towards the native tribes, I find it hard, that a mere few months of these relationships that this would have drastically changed Blocker's outlook, and that of some of his companions traveling with them to Montana.  The start of the movie saying he had a strong aversion to native tribes and the sheer force needed to get Blocker to merely take this mission, and a complete 180 in thought process.  Despite this being an issue, there were some scenes that I found worth screening in the movie, the offering of the tobacco to the chief; Blocker and the chief saving the chief's family from the voyageurs; returning to the native land.  I just felt there could have been more to tie these well intended and well acted scenes to the overall development of the story line without it being as preachy. 

For me, the driving force was the music and the cinematography.  Unfortunately with the ease of CGI, many of our current films take the easy computer generated route out.  Murder on the Orient Express is a perfect recent example of the overuse of CGI for natural sunset and mountain scenes.  If you are given a beautiful but harsh landscape to work with, there are so many things that you can do, without the need to overly edit the sky or natural beauty.  Cooper, however, used much of natural light scenes, and the natural, harsh beauty of the landscape he was filming in.  Many of these landscape shots were reticent of the natural light seen in 2015's The Reverent.  There were many scenes that were well worth seeing on the large screen:  Sunsets, horses, grasslands, mountains, rock formations. 

Music was also a driving force of the story line.  A mix of the classic western twang, there was also a good collection of native music that was used.  The 135 minute film had minimalist dialogue and much of the well done cinematography was well matched with music.