In 1892, a legendary Army captain reluctantly agrees to escort a Cheyenne chief and his family through dangerous territory.
Premiering last week to rave reviews at the Telluride Film Festival, Christian Bale’s first return to the Western since his classic remake of 3:10 to Yuma, directed by Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart) is desperately trying to secure a release date in late 2017 to qualify for the awards, such is the confidence in people who have gotten a look at it. The first trailer is a moody and tense promise of what could be a great story. Cooper’s come close in the past, but never really made a film that I thought was a home run, but Hostiles could change all that when it opens later this year.
Westerns are not my favorite genre. A Western has to be exceptionally good for me to respond to it. This one looks promising, though. I’m looking forward to the Netflix series from the Coens, too, because their True Grit was spectacular. Come to think of it, Westerns don’t really get made these days without good pedigree behind them. I think I might find them off-putting because growing up I saw a lot of old ones on TV, and decided they were lame. And the ones I saw probably were, for the most part. Hollywood once cranked those things out, baby, and for every great one there must have been thirty mediocre examples.
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I’m hearing that this was an early 2018 release until the film festival feedback has them scrambling to get it Oscar qualified. Always good to see Bale at the top of his game and reunited with Ben Foster with whom he made 3:10 to Yuma.
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I’ve never seen Bale not be at the top of his game. Have you? Because I’m drawing a blank. The guy is seriously devoted to his craft.
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Exodus maybe. That film was a total wreck, but he’s been acting since he was 10 so he usually puts everything he has into a project; Terminator Salvation too, more famously, but largely, you get Bale, you get one of the five best actors working.
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I never saw Exodus. When I heard that a burning bush wasn’t to Ridley Scott’s liking, and God was instead represented by a petulant little boy with an English accent, I tuned out. When I heard that the red sea did not so much part as get drained by a tsunami, I decided to wait out the new Hollywood trend of Biblical epics until it self-destructed. And my patience paid off. It’s not a question of whether you believe in God, it’s that you’ve got IMAX, and you’ve got a story that contains the wrath of God. What do you need, a road map?
It does not surprise me that Bale’s performance was on par with the rest of that misguided production, and to be perfectly honest I had forgotten that he was John Conner. John Conner is kind of a borderline-mythic character, and it’s a shame that they had a film set in the right timeline to show him as an adult, and someone as good as Bale was playing him, and still it was a loss.
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You did not miss anything in Exodus; frankly it was so boring I don’t think I finished it.
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oooh….here’s hoping for a good Western. There are too few these days…fingers crossed.
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Completely agree
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