Hostiles

Hostiles

Posted on January 18, 2018 at 2:41 pm

B-
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong violence, and language
Profanity: Some very strong and racist language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Alcohol, smoking
Violence/ Scariness: Extensive and very graphic violence, many characters injured and killed, rapes
Diversity Issues: A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters: January 19, 2018

Copyright 2017 Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures
“Hostiles” is more in conversation with movies about the settlement of the West than it is about or in conversation with the brutal history of the West itself. For decades there were simple stories of brave cowboys and soldiers fighting racist caricatures of Native Americans. White men were heroes and Indians were savages.

Then there were some stories with a little more nuance and some better intentions but pretty much on the side of “civilization” and the more nuanced Native American characters were usually played by actors who were not Native Americans. Westerns went out of vogue in part because of the growing recognition that the stories were too complicated and painful for the “good guys vs. bad guys” cliches of the past. “Hostiles” is a sincere effort from writer/director Scott Cooper at a Western that frankly grapples with the challenge of building a society on the unthinkable carnage and injustice of the past. But there is more formula than drama, with each character specifically designed to represent a place on the spectrum of culpability. With dialogue like “I don’t know what we are going to do with these wretched savages” and “There ain’t enough punishment for his kind” and soldiers with too-symmetrical responses to their own culpability, and unceasing brutality to drive the points home, even the fine acting cannot bring it to life.

Christian Bale plays Captain Joseph Blocker, a man who has witnessed and inflicted horrible brutality in the fight with Indians. When he is ordered to escort an Indian leader and his family to their home, he refuses, until his superior officer threatens to court-martial him and withhold his pension. Blocker despises Chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi), who has been in prison for years and is dying of cancer. But the President has ordered that he be allowed to return home to die, and he will need an escort to protect him and his family.

Blocker assembles a group of soldiers and they begin the journey. They come across Rosalie Quaid (Rosamund Pike), whose husband and children have just been killed by Indians, who stole their horses and burned down her home. She is severely traumatized, but Blocker’s respectful treatment helps her begin to accept what has happened, and when Yellow Hawk’s daughter offers her some clothes, she changes out of her blood-stained dress.

Each encounter along the way, most horrifically brutal, is designed to add some variation on the theme, and all boil down to: both white settlers and Native Americans committed atrocities and both have to find some way to reconcile with the past. The film begins with a quote from DH Lawrence: ““The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.” Perhaps more apt is a quote attributed to Golda Meir, “We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children.”

Parents should know that this film has extended peril, violence, and rape, with many characters injured and killed, including children and a baby, and many grisly and disturbing images, suicide, racist epithets and comments, and some strong language.

Family discussion: What helped Mrs. Quaid begin to accept her loss? How were Blocker and Wills different? Why did Blocker get on the train?

If you like this, try: “Unforgiven” and “The Searchers”

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Drama DVD/Blu-Ray Epic/Historical movie review Movies -- format Movies -- Reviews Race and Diversity Western
Hell or High Water

Hell or High Water

Posted on August 11, 2016 at 5:40 pm

Copyright Film 44 2016
Copyright Film 44 2016
“Hell or High Water” is a modern western that reminds us why spare, dry landscapes have so often been the settings for grand American epics. Like frontier stories of ranchers, farmers, cowboys, Indians, masculinity, and bank robbers, this film has a gripping story that touches on the most profound American struggles — from guns to real estate, race, and income inequality — specific in detail but universal in scope.

One of the film’s wisest choices is in keeping important information from us until just the right moment, so I will be especially scrupulous about spoilers and keep the description of the plot to a minimum. There are four main characters, two bank robbers and two Texas Rangers. The bank robbers are Tanner (Ben Foster) and Toby (Chris Pine), and we can tell immediately that they seem less experienced than the staff at the small Texas Midland bank branch they are robbing, just before it opens on a dusty morning. Both bad news and good manners are so deeply ingrained in the bank manager that he courteously wishes them a good morning before turning over the small unmarked bills.

The Texas Rangers are about-to-retire Marcus (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto (Gil Birmingham), who is of both Native American and Mexican heritage, as Marcus constantly reminds him with a stream of amiably delivered insults. As Tanner and Toby continue to rob banks, always Texas Midland branches, Marcus begins to discover a pattern that begins to reveal a plan.

The characters are skillfully drawn and performed with a deep and understanding humanity, not just by the four lead actors but by everyone in the cast. Every performance in even the smallest role conveys an arid and dusty world, physically, financially, and emotionally. Standouts include Katy Mixon as a waitress, Richard Christie as a bank loan officer, and Dale Dickey as the woman who opens the bank in the morning.

The outstanding screenplay is written by Texan Taylor Sheridan (“Sicario,” “Guns of Anarchy”), who knows these people and these places. He has a gift for finding the poetry in dialog as dry and spare as the setting. And he has the confidence in himself, his characters, and his audience to let the story unfold without telling us too much at first, and to present complex issues without feeling that he has to provide simple answers. Sheridan also has a gift for the small, telling details, the bank manager who courteously wishes the bank robbers good morning, the Indian casino, the ex-wife, the way some men say more in the pauses than the words. His deep appreciation for people overlooked by just about everyone makes this cops and robbers story into something real and meaningful.

Parents should know that this film has extended crime and law enforcement-related violence, with characters injured and killed, themes of moral and legal crimes, drinking, smoking, sexual references, prostitute, and a brief explicit sexual situation.

Family discussion: Why does the movie keep some of the details of the plan secret for so long? Why does Marcus insult Alberto? Why does Tanner say he is a Comanche?

If you like this, try: “99 Homes” and “The Newton Boys”

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Crime Drama Western
The Revenant

The Revenant

Posted on January 7, 2016 at 5:35 pm

B+
Lowest Recommended Age: Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating: Rated R for strong frontier combat and violence including gory images, a sexual assault, language and brief nudity
Profanity: Some strong and racist language
Alcohol/ Drugs: Drinking
Violence/ Scariness: Intense, graphic, and disturbing violence including arrows, knives, guns, sexual assault and prolonged animal attack
Diversity Issues: A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters: January 8, 2016
Date Released to DVD: April 18, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN: B01AB0DX2K
Copyright 20th Century Fox 2015
Copyright 20th Century Fox 2015

In the 1820’s, ladies of fashion liked fur trim. And, true then as now, men like money. So frontiersmen went on trapping expeditions into the wilderness of the young country of the United States of America (played here by British Columbia and Alberta, Canada). The rewards for bringing back fur pelts are significant. The risks, including attack by the Arikara Indians, are dire.

A frontiersman named Hugh Glass was the guide for one of these expeditions. According to lore, he was savagely attacked by a bear and left to die by his companions, but survived and made it back over 250 miles to the nearest fort, intent on revenge. The story has been told — and embroidered and adapted — over the years, reflecting each era’s perspective and concerns. This version is based on the novel by US Trade Michael Punke (who, as Deputy US Trade representative and Ambassador to the World Trade Organization is restricted from promoting the film). As co-written and directed by “Birdman’s” Alejandro González Iñárritu it is a story of resolve. As often with Westerns, it is a way to explore the fundamental contradictions of the American spirit: determination, vision, courage, but sometimes without any regard for the damage they can cause.

Both Iñárritu and his Director of Photography Emmanuel Lubezki won Oscars for this film. They filmed only in available light, meaning they had to limit themselves to just moments of filming each day. As the director told Deadline, they created “little-by-little jewel moments; that’s the way I designed the production…But those locations are so gorgeous and so powerful, they look like they have never been touched by a human being, and that’s what I needed.” They filmed under conditions so arduous that Will Poulter, who plays real-life frontiersman/trapper Jim Bridger, told me that no acting was necessary to show that they were freezing and exhausted. The bear is CGI (and the bear attack is truly horrifying), but almost everything else was really there and really happening, including diCaprio’s hacking coughs (he had the flu).

The cinematography is the most stunning I have ever seen, perfectly focussed throughout the depth of field, even across endless vistas. Second only to the visuals is the movie’s real theme, not revenge or even will, but law.

When there is no structure, no church, no police, courts, or jail, no lawmakers, no appeals, how do you decide who is in charge and what to do? The film’s most fascinating moments are the ones where we see characters across the continuum on those questions, with one in particular who is still deciding where he fits in, decide what they should do, what they must do. In an early scene, the Indians attack and the frontiersmen’s response is: pelts payload first, and every man for himself second. Wounded men are left behind without a second’s hesitation.

But when Glass (Oscar-winner Leonardo DiCaprio) is critically wounded in the middle of nowhere, Captain Henry, the leader of the expedition (Domhnall Gleeson) is certain what he is owed. Because he has been an essential and honorable part of their expedition (and, unstated but evident, because no one is shooting arrows at them at the moment), he decides two men will be left behind to care for him until he dies and then give him some semblance of a Christian burial. They are John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and Bridger (17 years old at the time). Glass has a teenage son (Forrest Goodluck), from his marriage to a Native American woman who was killed, and he stays with his father as well.

But Fitzgerald becomes impatient and commits a terrible act of cruelty while Bridger is away from the campsite, then lies to him about what happened. Glass is left for dead. As Glass, Fitzgerald, Henry, and Bridger deal with the consequences of these actions, we see the beginnings of a society and culture. Some day, the pristine landscapes explored by Glass and Bridger would be covered with roads and cities and we will try to re-create them by filming in other countries to show us what we were. But the story of the struggle for justice, always the great work of this country, is a story we will keep telling forever.

Parents should know that this film includes extremely graphic and disturbing human and animal violence with many explicit and disturbing images of dead bodies and wounds, murder of family members, sexual assault, brief nudity, some strong language, and racism.

Family discussion: How many different views about law and morality do you see among the characters? What should the group have done with a severely injured member?

If you like this, try: “Touching the Void,” a documentary about an extraordinary story of survival in the wilderness

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Based on a book Based on a true story Drama DVD/Blu-Ray Pick of the Week Epic/Historical Western

A Million Ways to Die in the West

Posted on May 29, 2014 at 5:58 pm

A_Million_Ways_to_Die_in_the_West_posterWhen Seth MacFarlane tops his unprecedented success on television with three animated series (“Family Guy,” “The Cleveland Show,” “American Dad”) and his first feature film was a blockbuster — the talking teddy bear movie Ted is the highest grossing R comedy of all time, in both senses of the word, with a sequel in the works.  He also found time to put out an album of American songbook standards that received widespread if somewhat grudging critical acclaim (Music Is Better Than Words) and produce a popular reboot of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” series.  His only real flop to day was his disappointing hosting job at the Oscars (the song “We Saw Your Boobs” and sexist jokes did not go over well).  So, he can write his own ticket in Hollywood.  And that is what he has done with “A Million Ways to Die in the West,” a silly comedy that reflects the excessive deference given to someone with that track record.  You want to do a western?  Fine!  You want to not just write and direct but also cast yourself as the lead opposite top-ranked actors?  With lots of fart jokes?  Where do we sign?

And that is how “A Million Ways to Die in the West” got made.  It is too long, too dumb, and too gross.  But sometimes funny.

The saucer-eyed MacFarlane plays Albert, a sheep farmer who hates living in the west where “everything that is not you is trying to kill you.”  A motif of the film is the many ways minor characters are killed off, intentionally or by accident.  We meet Albert talking his way out of a shootout on the main street, to the disappointment of the assembled townsfolk and his fiance, Louise (Amanda Seyfried, the local schoolmarm).  Louise dumps him, and Albert is devastated.  His friends Edward (Giovanni Ribisi) and his fiancee Ruth (Sarah Silverman) try to comfort him, but he is inconsolable until he meets Anna (Charlize Theron), new in town.  She offers to help him make Louise jealous, but they find themselves attracted to one another.  Unfortunately (as we know early on but Albert does not), Anna is married to the West’s most notorious gunslinger, with the macho name of Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson).

The movie looks and sounds like a classic western, with sun-burnished views of Monument Valley from Director of Photography Michael Barrett and an evocative score by Joel McNeely, both MacFarlane regulars.  Neeson is outstanding, as always, never winking at the camera.  Neil Patrick Harris is a pleasure as Albert’s romantic rival, a mustachioed slicker who can dance up a storm.   Theron manages the more challenging trick of making Anna feel real, even though she is delivering contemporary dialog in buckskin and a bustle.  It is a wonderfully natural, appealing performance that does wonders to give MacFarlane more humanity and make him seem a little less whiny and juvenile.

Unfortunately, the move keeps things pretty whiny and juvenile anyway, with MacFarlane taking full advantage of the MPAA’s notoriously lax standards for a studio comedy to include material that is more tiresome than outrageous.  More unfortunately, it goes on at least 40 minutes too long, with an extended drug trip hallucination sequence that feels as endless as your college roommate’s moment by moment rendition of his dream.  Lame humor includes an extended conversation about people in olden days not smiling in photographs and Ruth’s activities as a prostitute who as a good Christian won’t sleep with her boyfriend until they are married.  There are no set-pieces as funny as Mark Wahlberg’s recitation of trashy girl names in “Ted” and the guest stars feel stunt-ish, not a part of the storyline as Sam Jones and Norah Jones were in that film.  By the time the sheep is peeing on Albert’s face, the audience may feel that in the old west as ever, dying is easy but comedy is hard.

Translation: Constant extremely crude and gross-out humor with very explicit and raunchy sexual references and situations and extensive bodily function humor, nudity, jokes about prostitution and child molestation, racial and sexual orientation humor, western-style violence with shoot-outs and many characters injured and killed, disturbing images, drinking, smoking, drug use, very strong and explicit language including the r-word

Family discussion: What do the “straight” western elements of this film like the cinematography, landscapes, and score contribute to its overall effect? Do you think any of these jokes went too far?

If you like this, try: “Ted” and “Blazing Saddles”

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Comedy Western
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