"Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter One" (2024)

"You've just got to keep going."

That's the whole theme of Horizon: An American Saga: Chapter One (2024).  No matter what happens, no matter how good or bad or horrifying or wonderful life gets, you just have to keep going.  You might die anyway, but those who stand still, or sit and wait, will die soonest (and probably worst).  You've just got to keep going.

I've seen this movie twice now, and I can't stop thinking about it.  I don't know if it's still going to be showing this coming weekend, but if it is, I just might go see it a third time yet.  It's one of those wonderfully layered movies where you understand things on a deeper level with every viewing.

I'm really glad that DKoren went to see it first, because she warned me that the movie was going to start out with some short, disconnected vignettes, and to just go along for the ride because it would all start to make sense eventually.  And that is exactly how my first viewing was.  The film starts right in the middle of a situation, then flips to different characters in the middle of a different situation, then flips to yet more people, and just keeps doing that for the first half hour or so, until it gradually gives you longer and longer sections.  And it keeps cycling around between three major storylines.

By the end of this first chapter, you can see how some of these groups could be colliding in the next chapter, which was supposed to open in August, but now has been pushed back to late fall.  No fair!  I am on absolute tenterhooks to see what happens next!  The second time I watched it, the whole film was so satisfying right from the get-go because I knew who the characters all were, and I could see how all the threads were starting to get woven together right away.

Because this film is so sprawling and grand, and because it cycles around and around through the characters and their storylines, I am mostly just going to talk about my favorite characters and some details and aspects I really liked.  I will try not to spoil things more than you could figure out from seeing the trailer.

I absolutely love the historicity of this film.  So many things that western movies (and books) have gotten wrong so often are done right here!  The settlers build a dance hall that is literally a big space to have a fun dance in, not a euphemism for a whorehouse.  Being shot by one bullet or one arrow does not mean you are dead.  In fact, some characters take multiple bullets or arrows and keep fighting.  Others do drop and die after one -- it all depends on where you shoot a person.  (I'm not saying I don't love old Classic Hollywood westerns where one shot = one kill is the norm, because I obviously do, but this is much more realistic.)

Not every character is white -- you've got Black and White and Chinese and Hispanic and American Indian characters all living and working side-by-side.  There's some racial friction, but most people are just trying to stay alive and help each other regardless of race or background.  Not every Apache is a murderous killer.  Not every white man hates minorities.  Not every child is a fool.  

And Costner has a John Ford-like way of making the beautiful scenery of the American West convey emotion.  Sweeping vistas, breathtakingly beautiful trees and mountains, vast plains -- whether the countryside is lush or stark, it evokes a response in the viewer, and sometimes in the characters too.

The movie revolves around the frontier town Horizon.  A man back East prints up thousands and thousands of handbills advertising land ready for settling around a Utah town called Horizon.  The town is still just a flat, empty space when the first settlers arrive in the early 1860s, but that doesn't deter them.  It's situated beside a river right where local Apache tribes like to ford; naturally, the Apache don't take kindly to this intrusion.  Well, some of them don't.  Some of the Apache are convinced they can live in peace side-by-side with the settlers.

My favorite character connected with the town of Horizon (and probably favorite overall, really) is Elizabeth Kittredge (Georgia MacPhail), a girl who's maybe thirteen, who survives an Apache raid on the town along with her mother Frances (Sienna Miller) and ends up living at the Cavalry fort while she and her mother try to figure out what to do next with their lives.  Elizabeth starts out playful and cute, but she proves to have a backbone made of steel when she has to face up to some huge losses and harsh truths about how much and how quickly life can change.  But she retains a sweet kindness and innocence despite the ordeals she's endured.

I completely and unreservedly love Sergeant Major Riordan (Michael Rooker), who is pictured above as well.  He is a wonderful and lovely and adorable gent, and so I suppose he's probably doomed to die in an upcoming installment to this saga because that's what always happens when I love secondary characters.  His wife (Elizabeth Dennehy) is basically Aging Feistily goals, and I want them to adopt me.

I also really like Lieutenant Gephart (Sam Worthington), a brave, resourceful, clear-eyed Cavalry officer who consistently behaves like a gentleman.  I would say I love him, except I kind of am confused by a bit of dialog toward the end of the film that makes it sound like maybe he's already married, but now he's interested in a woman at the fort... the whole conversation has me scratching my head, like maybe he's actually saying he is NOT married, but the reason he hasn't asked to court her is because she's a widow who only lost her husband a little while ago, so he thinks he shouldn't?  It's an odd conversation, and I discussed it with DKoren after my second viewing because I STILL hadn't figured it out, and she agreed that it confused her too.  So it's not just me.  He does NOT seem like the kind of guy who would have a wife back East and then dally with another woman, and the woman he's interested in at the fort does NOT seem like the kind of woman who would seek the affections of a married man.  So I think I'm just misunderstanding that whole conversation... but I'm not sure.  So I'm merely liking Gephart until I figure out what actually is going on with his romantic entanglements.

I mentioned that there are three main storylines here.  One revolves around the town of Horizon, the Cavalry fort nearby, and the Apache village not far away.  Some of the survivors of the raid on Horizon decide to strike back by killing the warriors that attacked them, and they end up getting involved with some very nasty scalp-hunters.  One of the scalp-hunters is played by Jeff Fahey, whom I was excited to see just because he was in Silverado (1985) with Kevin Costner, where they played rivals.  I'm kind of hoping their characters cross paths in the next movie just because it would be so fun.  

Speaking of Kevin Costner, who co-wrote, directed, and co-produced the film as well as starring in it, it's super interesting that his character, Hayes Ellison, doesn't show up until a whole hour into the film.  He's part of another main storyline, which revolves around the evil Sykes clan and their attempts to avenge their father's shooting and the theft of his illegitimate son.  In one of the opening vignettes of the film, a woman (Jena Malone) shoots James Sykes (Charles Halford) so she and her baby boy can get away from him.  Sykes doesn't die, and his sons Junior (Jon Beavers) and Caleb (Jamie Campbell Bower) set out after her, bent on punishing the woman and taking her son.

Hayes Ellison gets tangled up in this whole affair a couple of years later.  The baby is now a toddler boy named Sam (Cleo and Nyla Eringer-Parkerkast), and his mom now goes by Ellen and has hooked up with a fairly nice guy.  They're living in a mining camp, and they think they're about to sell some land to some wealthy speculators, so they leave Sam with a flighty prostitute named Marigold (Abbey Lee) for the afternoon so they can seal this land deal.  One thing leads to another, involving several killings, and Hayes ends up fleeing with Marigold and little Sam so the Sykes clan can't get them too.  

I would like Hayes a lot more if I knew what he's actually doing in that mining town, but he's pretty mysterious and very quiet-spoken, so all we really know about him is what we see him do.  What does he do?  Kills a killer very openly and patiently, then does everything in his power to protect and defend a woman he met a couple hours earlier and a child he is not kin to.  He's a hero, but a hero with shadows, and I think he's going to be really interesting in the next one, once we get to know him better.

Oddly enough (and particularly oddly if you know me), one of the characters I find the most interesting is Junior Sykes.  He is absolutely a villain in this (and I almost never like villains), but he absolutely fascinates me.  He's got this wretched father out there making babies with random young women, he's got a dreadful mother that goes around punching her sons and spewing vitriol, and his younger brother Caleb is scum of the earth.  But Junior has a wife who appears to like him and not fear him, and he's not afraid to own up to mistakes.  He's got facets, folks.  If I was writing this saga, he would have a redemption arc coming and I would love him for it.  I'm not, so he probably doesn't, but the potential is there.

Okay, that's storyline two.  The third storyline is about a wagon train heading west, led by Matthew Van Weyden (Luke Wilson).  There's considerable friction amongst the members of that train, much of it involving clueless, hapless Eastern couple Juliette (Ella Hunt) and Hugh (Tom Payne).  They do stupid things like bathe in the drinking water, loll around in bed until all hours of the morning, and sit around drawing pictures instead of helping fix broken wagons for others.  Juliette is a particularly grating moron who luxuriates in bathing out in the open behind their wagon and then gets freaked out because men spy on her.  The men are awful dudes, but what the blankety-blank was she thinking?  I don't believe she was thinking at all.  I've got very little time for her.  But Hugh has promise.  He could turn into a good sort, if he gets a chance.

We don't know for sure where those wagon train folks are going, but I'm guessing they're heading for Horizon because some of the settlers are a man named Owen Kittredge (Will Patton) with three capable daughters, and I'm betting they are related to my favorite character, Elizabeth Kittredge.  We shall see!

The film ends with this maddening montage where all the characters have exciting things happen, but we only see little snippets of them.  No lie, I went to see this a second time mainly so I could figure out some of what happens in that montage.  I'm really hoping that it's a foretaste of things to come, and we're not going to get to the theater in November and find it was all stuff that happened between the first and second chapters.  Because there are some fights and showdowns in that montage I want to see and enjoy!

The soundtrack for Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter One is by John Debney, and I have been listening to it a lot.  You can hear it on YouTube -- my favorite cue is from that maddening ending montage, and it is so awesome you should listen to it too:

Is this movie family friendly?  Uh, no, it's rated R.  I look forward to watching it at home, where I can fast-forward through two specific parts (that bathing scene with stupid Juliette, plus one where Marigold has her way with a man).  There is some blood-spattery violence, and the scalping parts are gruesome, though a surprising amount of the gore happens just off-screen and is only implied.  There's some bad language throughout, though not extremely much -- quite a bit of it is taking the Lord's name in vain, but there are some other cuss words too.  There are scenes with dead bodies, several scantily-clad women, and some very intense scenes of children in peril.

This is already streaming on some services, and I've pre-ordered my DVD copy today!  At least I'll have that to tide me over until Chapter Two arrives in November.

This review is one of my contributions for Legends of Western Cinema Week this year.  Check out my kick-off post for links to everyone's posts, giveaways, and games!