Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1
Horizon: An American Saga 2024 ‧ Western Drama
Kevin Costner’s ambitious “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1” attempts an epic Western rewrite but suffers from a slow start, underwritten characters, and an imbalance between Indigenous and settler perspectives despite its grand ambitions. Though setting up future films, this three-hour chapter is a slog.
- Movie Name: Horizon: An American Saga
- Release date: June 28, 2024 (USA)
- IMDb RATING: ⭐8.0/10
- Director: Kevin Costner
- Story by: Jon Baird; Kevin Costner; Mark Kasdan
- Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
- Budget: $100 million (Chapter 1 and 2)
- Cinematography: J. Michael Muro
Intro
Over sixty years ago, directors Henry Hathaway, John Ford, and George Marshall joined forces to tell the story of America’s push toward the Pacific in the epic Western film “How The West Was Won.” Produced through the three-strip Cinerama process, it featured an ensemble cast of legendary actors like James Stewart, Spencer Tracy, John Wayne, Gregory Peck, Henry Fonda, Thelma Ritter, and many more. The film’s grand canvas seemingly stretched further than the country itself, depicting the perseverance of (white) settlers to conquer the land, the people already inhabiting it, and each other.
Now, actor Kevin Costner has attempted an ambitious directorial return with “Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 1,” a three-hour work that tries to rewrite past wrongs while suffering from the same glut that afflicted “How The West Was Won.”
Slow Start and Structural Issues
“Horizon” isn’t trying to subvert the Western genre; instead, it relies on many well-worn tropes. The film is a slow build of intersecting stories that takes so long to get going that Costner doesn’t even appear on screen until an hour in. The first third of “Horizon” is merely a long preamble, a structural decision indicative of a film grinding and failing to prove itself as a standalone feature.
The sizzle reel that ends Chapter One, featuring a library of clips and characters for future movies, does well to tease the kind of high-motoring film we could get but don’t necessarily find here.
Plot and Character Development
The film limps into 1859 in San Pedro Valley, where a family surveying a plot of land by a creek is gruesomely murdered by Apache warriors who are none too happy to find white outsiders on their land. These deaths did little to deter more settlers from arriving and establishing a town guarded by armed citizens. During a town dance, the Apache warriors return, and a grisly, vicious massacre—backgrounded by rumbling flames and deafening screams—is frankly edited and bluntly composed to the point that it feels as normalized as breathing.
Some of the townsfolk survive, and a few decide to hunt down their attackers in a bid for revenge. Others, like Lizzie (Georgia MacPhail) and her mother Frances (Sienna Miller), leave with the Union Army led by Lt. Trent Gephardt (Sam Worthington) to the relative safety of a fort.
Even with the cataclysmic scenes of death, the first hour does little to endear these characters, who are bespoke people whose connections aren’t immediately clear and only become vaguely obvious toward the picture’s conclusion.
Costner’s Arrival and Final Arc
Before long, we’re whisked away to the Wyoming Territory and introduced to some brand new characters, including Costner as Hayes Ellison, a horse trader, among many other skills. He befriends local sex worker Marigold (Abbey Lee), who is hunted by a band of gunmen because of a secret she’s hiding. The series gains a minor pulse once Costner, featuring a gruff, low voice, appears on screen. But even when he does appear, he feels like an afterthought, as though Costner knows how tall of a task he has introduced all of his main players, consequently limiting the power of his presence to the film’s detriment.
The final arc, introduced in the final hour, is the high point: It involves a wagon train making its way with an unlikely cast of characters through the Montana territory. Luke Wilson, the head of this traveling group, is the strongest actor in this cast, imbuing Matthew Van Weyden with a groundedness that the series sorely lacks.
Representation and Perspective
While Costner tries to play an even hand, attempting to give the Indigenous and settler perspectives equal attention, it doesn’t wholly work. Yes, we meet the family of the Apache warriors, but their screen time pales in comparison to their white counterparts. It also doesn’t help that the white women characters are, for the most part, so clean and luminous—nary a speck of dust on them despite their grungy surroundings—that they appear angelic on screen.
The score is equally telling: It’s a gorgeous, big, triumphant Old Hollywood score whose most sympathetic notes are reserved for the film’s white characters. Costner does at least include a diverse cast, nodding toward the presence of Black people and Chinese immigrants in the history of the West, tracing across the vast, sumptuously photographed landscape by DP J. Michael Muro.
Comparisons and Missed Opportunities
While “Horizon” teases a kind of conspiracy theory—a mysterious publisher is printing and sending pamphlets promising a land of milk and honey that is only occupied by death—the film can’t help but be compared to “How The West Was Won.” That Western ultimately couldn’t overcome the weight of the era it was created in or genre conventions like forced, feeble romances.
“Horizon” is arriving in a more “enlightened” time, especially considering the release of Martin Scorsese’s “Killer of the Flower Moon” and other Indigenous-made works like “Reservation Dogs,” “Wild Indian,” “The Body Remembers When the World Broken Open,” “Beans,” and more. That presence put even greater pressure on Costner, and so far, he hasn’t completely overcome being the director of “Dances with Wolves.” That filmmaker, for better or for worse, still exists here in every corner of this epic picture.
Final Thoughts
While the first film in the possible “Horizon” series does well in setting up future pictures, continuing the momentum Costner gained before he left “Yellowstone,” this single film is a chore to sit through. It rarely gives viewers what they want: seeing Costner on the open range. It gives us few memorable characters outside of Costner; I can’t remember the name of a single figure without looking at my notes. It feels like a debilitating mistake to bank on possible future films to land the entire concept. “Horizon” keeps far too many of the best bits far out of reach.
Description: Movie JD | Screen Rant | IMDb | Variety | SlashFilm, ArtStation, Full Movie, Resident Advisor, Moviefone, Box Office | Official Site | Rotten Tomatoes | Keith & the Movies | [Roger Ebert] | [Fandango] | Comic Book Resources | MovieWeb [MovieJD] BookMyShow | Movie Reviews | Entertainment Weekly