Hostiles (2017)

The story of Hostiles is fairly straight forward, if brutal. In the war between first nations peoples and the new American, people on both sides did horrible things, suffered terribly, and finding salvation in such a world was practically impossible. This thesis is constructed here in the story of two men, American Captain Joseph Blocker (Christian Bale) and Chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi), who, despite hating each other and having both done inhumane things, are forced to stick together to survive, learning about each other and being transformed.

Yes it sounds like a simple premise, but writer/director Scott Cooper's strength comes from telling it so well. Cooper doesn't try anything revolutionary here, instead sticking to laying one piece of the story after the next. Cooper rarely shies away from the brutality in his stories and so we see children being murdered, we see very few of the cast survive until the end. All of this is historically accurate and Cooper doesn't revel in it, instead choosing just to show it to us, as it is an essential party in who these men are and how their journey unfolds.

He also gives a great deal of perspective to Rosamond Pike's Rosalie Quaid, a widow who sees her family murdered in front of her and also ends up on this transformative journey. The entire cast is strong, even those who don't last long, and their road trip is strung together nicely even if it is a bit episodic, and to be honest, a bit foreseeable. It is the film's unblinking determination in its moral and a gorgeously filmed plot which make Hostiles an emotionally powerful film and a completely engaging one.

The downfall comes in how white centred the film is. The story, while trying to bring in the perspectives of the non-Christian Bale characters, never quite gives them the stage as much as it does him. Perhaps this is Cooper's attempt not to tell someone else's story, or perhaps it is due to the intended audience. I might have appreciated if the film found a way to give its audience as much of Yellow Hawk's perspective, as much of Quaid's. What it does do it powerful and effective. I just imagine there is another story here and wouldn't that be fascinating.

Still Cooper's film is beautiful as is the moral of the story. War creates in us the kinds of monsters that appear to be all but irredeemable, until we can find a love and respect to being the healing again.

Hostiles
Starring: Christian Bale, Wes Studi, Rosamond Pike, Adam Beach, Q'orianka Kilcher, Ben Foster, Stephen Lang, Timothee Chalamet
Writer/Director: Scott Cooper