Hostiles: Movie Review

So, my girlfriend had wanted to see this movie when it came out, and so did I. But i was worried about it being another The Revenant, which was a similarly darkly themed movie that received a lot of accolades but which I, frankly, felt like something was missing from. But it was in and out of the move theaters very quickly, without either of us realizing it had finally even come out. And then, it seemed to take forever for either the library or Red Box to have copies of this movie.

Finally, Red Box got it over the weekend, and it seemed like a good time to finally go ahead and watch it.

We did, and let me just say that this movie is not for everyone. She likes happy movies, and sometimes, I wonder why she seems attracted to some of the most depressing movies around (again, The Revenant, as well as The Promise, and, of course, this one). This is definitely not a happy movie, and is very, very sobering and depressing, right from the get go.

Now, depressing movies are, by contrast, right up my alley. I tend to like art - whether movies or books or music or whatever - that make you think, that give you serious pause for thought. But by and large, that means that these will not have happy themes. There are exceptions, but in this case, with art that makes you think about serious issues, they almost by definition have to be serious, and not simply happy all of the time. And Hostiles definitely is not a happy movie. Without spoiling the movie, it delves right into a very dark scene, and goes on from there. To be honest, there are not many light moments in this movie.

That said, it takes a fairly honest examination of the hatred that existed and fueled the events of the latter half of the 19th century, particularly the post-Civil War expansion western expansion. Native Americans were being displaced, and so obviously, as any group of people being displaced will tend to do, they resist. That means that this is a war, and there are abuses and horrific moments whenever there is a war. This movie does not hold back on that front.

This is a movie with some similarities to Dances With Wolves, in that a white army officer is out in the western frontier, and gets to know some Native Americans intimately. Both movies also have some spectacular scenery, and both also express some fairly deep thoughts on the subject of the West, and the displacement of Natives, as well as the clearly approaching end of what could be considered the frontier days. But that is where the similarities end, because while Dances With Wolves was positive, sentimentalist and idealistic in it's depiction of Native Americans, to the point that it was unrealistic, this movie is much more realistic. While we might not sympathize with the sheer hatred that Captain  Joseph Blocker feels towards the Natives, we nonetheless come to understand that hatred from his perspective, as well as those of others in the United States Army. We come to understand how they would feel victimized by what they would likely define as violent crimes against them, even if they either completely ignored, or at least exonerated themselves from their own crimes against Natives, not least of which is expanding onto their land and forcing them out to begin with.

In short, this movie does not sugarcoat anything. The violence feels real, as does the dehumanizing effect of the violence. We tend to forget that the frontier days were, in fact, wars. Certainly, at least, that is true for most Americans, who are still only beginning to peel the layers of a complex history which, until quite recently, had been dumbed down to a heroic interpretation of the history of westward expansion as "Manifest Destiny" and a triumph for the country, and for civilization in general. In fact, Native Americans know only too well that this was a war, because they ultimately were overwhelmed by the war. Their way of life was wiped out, and their dignity taken from them, as the victors (the Americans) got the spoils. The fact that there were numerous treaties between the predominately white Americans and numerous Native nations, and that these treaties were constantly broken, was just another aspect of this sad history which we, as a nation, have never really come to grips with.

The acting is very good in this movie. Admittedly, I know Christian Bale's work mostly from Batman, and maybe a couple of other movies that he has been in as well, such as the washed up boxer in The Fighter.  But he really delivers a strong performance in this one, and he looks and sounds and feels like a battle-hardened, 19th century American military leader. This comes through almost right away, early in this film, when he is forced to confront a laughing, mocking journalist from Harper's Weekly. This journalist and Blocker have a clear dislike - really almost a seething hatred - of one another. We can liken this a bit to modern day dislike and mutual distrust between the "liberal media" and, say, Trump supporters, who feel that criticism of them as racists is unfair and instinctive from the "liberal media" machine, and that any news from these supposed news sources (as they would see it) is automatically "fake news." Clearly, the makes of this film wanted to make us be able to relate to the film, and to feel that maybe those times were not as different as they might have appeared to be at first glance.

Bale really comes across as convincing in his role. He is a better actor than what I originally believed him to be, even though I liked him in the Batman movies. But his acting in The Fighter and now in Hostiles goes to new levels, and it is impressive. Rosemund Pike is also fantastic in this movie, delivering a brilliant performance. Whether she plays a hopeful educator and loving mother, or someone who has endured unspeakable tragedy and developed a distrust and fear and even hatred towards Natives herself (at first, anyway), you also forget that she is an actress playing a role. Finally, Wes Studi also exquisitely plays his role of an aged Native warrior simply trying to get back to his ancestral lands in Montana, simply so that he can die in peace. The acting is quite phenomenal in this one, and it is a saving grace from the one major criticism of this film that I would tend to agree with.

To be sure, there are historical inaccuracies, particularly relating to the timeline. This film is supposed to take place in 1892, but that would make the Comanche raid right at the beginning of the movie virtually impossible, as they had already been subdued. Also, the trip from where the fictional Captain Blocker was stationed in New Mexico all the way up to Montana would not likely have been done on horseback, as there were already easier ways to get across so much of the United States that existed by then - particularly the railways.

For the sake of historical accuracy, as The Cynical Historian points out, this is not a difficult correction that they could have made. Simply put the setting of this film at least 10 to 20 years before 1892, and then a lot of these questions that kind of undermine the movie's credibility would have been taken care of.

That said, this is a very good and important movie. Again, the historical inaccuracies do bother me, especially since they could so easily have been avoided by simply moving the timeline up at least a decade or two. But otherwise, the themes of racism and violence and dehumanization are very well portrayed here. And in watching, we might find that we not only learn something about our own history here in the United States, but we might also catch a glimpse at a certain reality that some of these themes really never seem to go away in this country. That makes this movie especially relevant today, given how polarized the nation is at this moment.

Without trying to have any spoilers, I just wanted to say one more thing: I really liked the ending. It is very emotionally charged, and makes the main character, Captain Blocker, face a crossroads regarding the direction that he will take for the rest of his life, and whether or not people at large can change. It is a powerful scene rife with symbolism on several levels, and I, for one, found it to be very moving.

Please go ahead and watch this movie if and when you get the chance!

I also decided to add this video, which I watched shortly after seeing the film for the first time. In particular, I enjoyed the way that Christian Bale, Wes Studi, and Rosamund Pike analyze their individual characters, and discuss their relations between one another. It brings another dimension to the movie, and made me want to see it again with this insight.