Hostiles (2017)

[baumer]

Discuss

[Avatree]

enjoyed it quite a lot. a real slow burn, it never outstayed its welcome. it felt very authentic, partly due to the production design, cinematography, partly because of the excellent performances, and partly because it takes itself very seriously. There is not an ounce of humour in the film, which is really quite rare. It works well but in the screening I was in, everyone else was bored and started talking among each other.

[Vanilla]

Pretty good film, with great performances all around.

 

Only flaw was it needed to be a little longer. I felt that the respect between the Native Americans and Bales character was earned very fast and should have been more drawn out.

 

7/10

[RobinHood26]

Bale is a GOD, first act is great, but its ends up running its course and feeling like its going in circles. And for a movie about a man learning to care and or respect a certain type of people or person the native americans really are basically just featured extras.

 

B- (82)

 

[Barnack]

Bale was particularly great here again it is true.

 

5 hours ago, Vanilla said:

Only flaw was it needed to be a little longer. I felt that the respect between the Native Americans and Bales character was earned very fast and should have been more drawn out.

It had a considerably longer runtime, 134 minutes, than The Searchers a movie that achieve to make decade of events felt it's long time, I think the issue is the many substory here, I am not sure they all reinforced/opposed/added to that main theme versus eating quite a lot of the clock.

 

An other factor is how extreme they made Bale character start from and go toward an other extreme, the "I prefer kill myself than do this" stance to "I will put everyone life in danger and kill many people to give him the proper burial" is quite an arc and a bit of melodramatic one. Versus Wayne much smaller one were he does not change that much but realize that he is a beast or a least a men not of is time and not proper for the evolving society.

 

Was not a big fan at all of that arc and of all those substories/characthers, 5/10 C

[Rorschach]

Bale was exceptional in this film and the rest of the cast was good although some of the actors felt kinda wasted playing less-than-important roles (Foster and Chalamet). The film is very competently made and has some great camerawork. After the first act or so, the film just feels like its going through the motions with no real structure. The Comanche are made out to do be this really big threat early on in the film, especially during that great opening scene, but that gets resolved somewhat quickly with not that big a payoff. Ultimately, it just lost all of its steam by the end of it.

 

Still, this is a very well-made Western and it's always great to see Bale act in a film. 

6/10

Edited February 4, 2018 by Rorschach

[Avatree]

On 2/4/2018 at 4:22 AM, Rorschach said:

some of the actors felt kinda wasted playing less-than-important roles (Chalamet)

I thought it was funny when he died, he only said like one line at the start which was like "Sir, erm, why am I here?" then he gets killed lol. Nope Timotheee I dont know why you were there either.

[Jake Gittes]

as long, slow and self-serious as a funeral procession. Hard to fault the ambition - from the opening quote it's already clear that it aims for notging less than a grand statement about America, violence, death, history, what have you. But Cooper is just too much of an unimaginative yet pretentious journeyman to do this sort of thing without constantly tripping up. 

[Blankments]

Hostiles is a serviceable western that ends up being much more intriguing than it initially seems. Blocker is a really interesting character to build a story around, and Bale embodies with his usual welcome vulnerability. The journey he shares with the other characters typically fascinates, despite the meandering pace. The cast acquits itself well all around, although there are some distracting casting decisions made with some of the smaller roles. Richter's score is solid and the cinematography is very beautiful.

 

However, there's a solid chunk in here that should've been cut; the Ben Foster scenes distract from the overall narrative and a digression that happens within there falls a bit too much in unnecessary grimness. Hostiles is a solid film that could've been very good, but instead is a forgettable throwback to the time of the westerns. A good watch that I won't remember any from in the morning. C+