Hostiles (2017)

Hostiles is a quite interesting western that convinces with stunning landscapes, intriguing characters and strong acting performances. The movie has a quite slow pace, so don't expect a vivid American or Italian western from the fifties and sixties. This movie is a drama above all, situated in a historically intriguing period between the American Civil War and the emergency of the Industrial Revolution.

The story revolves around Captain Joseph Blocker, who has lost many friends and brothers in arms in battles against Apaches and who openly despises them. He tracks them down pitilessly and tells himself that he is doing his duty while people around him start becoming depressed and disillusioned. One day, a colonel gives him a final order before his retirement,direct from the President. Joseph Blocker must escort a dying Cheyenne Chief, his personal arch enemy, as well as his family back to their tribal lands as a sign of reconciliation with the First Nations. The captain, who has always obeyed orders, is about to refuse but is menaced and forced to cooperate. He gathers a few faithful brothers in arms and must also cooperate with some inexperienced rookies around him to go on this dangerous trip. On the way from New Mexico to Montana, the unusual group faces numerous challenges as they face difficult weather conditions, a hostile Comanche party and racist landowners among others. They are joined by numerous other intriguing characters such as a mentally unstable woman who has lost her entire family to the Apaches and a former brother in arms of the captain who is about to be hanged. However, their biggest challenge is to fight their inner demons and overcome their differences in order to survive in hostile territory.

The movie finds the right balance between violent sequences that focus on the witnesses' reactions rather than graphic elements and clever dialogues between the diversified cast of characters. The most fascinating character is Captain Joseph Blocker, who seems to be a pitiless racist at first sight but who turns out to be a man with a strong moral compass who goes through a coming-of-age on this fateful journey and ends up not only forgiving the Indians for killing his partners but even empathizing and sympathizing with them, ending up defending them beyond duty. His positive development exemplifies the difficult relationship between European settlers and America's First Nations and is ultimately a sign of forgiveness, hope and peace. This positive moral contrasts the quite sinsiter mood of the film with an elevated body count and sensitive topics such as depression, revenge and suicide as many characters shatter under the burden of the challenging order.

Hostiles is a film that needs some patience and time to unfold but ends up being particularly rewarding thanks to the strong moral behind the sinister mask. Christian Bale, one of the world's greatest actors, even delivers the best performance of his career as tough anti-hero with just as many flaws as strengths. Above all, Hostiles is a film that is profoundly human, in all its sickening darkness interrupted by some rays of light. The perfect ending exemplifies this mixture perfectly. Western and drama fans should experience this film at the cinema and fans of Christian Bale just can't get around this movie either. Hollywood should produce more westerns and less superhero movies.

Fmovies: What a great start to 2018! Christian Bale delivers a quiet yet an impressive performance in this movie as a soldier who against his wishes has been ordered to safely aid in the passage of a Cheyanne Chief and his family back to their home.

Alternating between slow moving scenes and sudden harsh violence across the screen, the movie is paced beautifully. The cinematography is captivating with the overall score not taking away from the scene at at hand.

The movie captures the power of human emotions and interactions in a very profound and beautiful way and the last scene bumped up my rating from an 8 to a 9.

Excellent acting (of course by Bale and Pike and their chemistry; but also by the entire crew), beautiful variety of scenery and smart music score. After reading other reviews, i thought it would not meet expectations; however, Hostiles did not disappoint. It was a well paced journey (left my wife and i wanting more), with authentic fight scenes and sounds; as well as interesting relationships and lessons in duty, sacrifice and care. Suspenseful, adventurous, romantic, emotional and dramatic; better than nearly all of the old 1940s and 1950s westerns; and more classy than the most of the post-Wayne, Stewart, and Scott ones. Unlike many that story line is primarily about revenge or some criminal motive; Hostiles is about a mission and survival.

Hostiles fmovies. "Hostiles" is sublime. Hatred dies in mortality and forgiveness in Writer and Director Scott Cooper's "Hostiles". Christian Bale is powerful in his humanity. Rosamund Pike is poignant resilience and loss. Cooper's images and narrative will move and touch your soul.

Rosamund Pike as young mother Mrs. Quaid cries in anguish as she digs with her bare hands the graves for her three children murdered by Apache Indians. While silent compassionate Christian Bale as Captain Joe Blocker watches with his men ready to aid the distraught widow. Mrs. Quaid is a woman of God, of faith. Without her faith what does she have? The scene broke my heart in tears. Bad things can occur under God's watch. Writers Cooper and Donald E. Steward don't shy away for the world's seeming unkindness and unfairness.

Cooper balances the ugliness and the beauty of courage and redemption in "Hostiles". Cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi elegantly captures the lightness and darkness. Darkness is in Blocker's merciless vengeance upon those who harmed the people he cares for on the stormy night. Lightness radiates as his party emerges on horseback riding through the sunlit forest. Poetry is in the balance.

As the singular Western, "Hostiles" is one of best ever, even compared to Clint Eastwood's iconic "Unforgiven". I think more so. Whereas, "Unforgiven" surrenders to the hollow emptiness, "Hostiles" asks to release hatred. Bale's Blocker is a killer of Indians, a racist, and prejudiced. What if all prejudice can be justified? Blocker realizes that his mortal enemy Cheyenne Chief Yellow Hawk, played by noble Wes Studi, would have slaughtered as he did, all for the sake of being right. You can take being right to the grave. In the end, being right makes absolutely no difference. That is the eloquence of "Hostiles". "Hostiles" invites to think from your soul.

Sitting on the grassy plains Mrs. Quaid asks, "You believe in the Lord, Joseph?" Blocker replies, "Yes. I do. But he's been blind to what 's been going on here for a long time." "Hostiles" inspires having faith knowing that the world is gray and cruel at times.

Set in New Mexico in 1892 retiring US Calvary Captain Joe Blocker, played by Bale, is commanded by his Colonel to escort Cheyenne Chief Yellow Hawk, played by Studi, and his family to his homeland in Montana. Yellow Hawk is now an old man dying of cancer. Blocker is transparent, "I hate him."

Blocker's unique gift is killing tribal Indian warriors. He's taken more scalps than Sitting Bull. In their younger days Yellow Hawk and his men heinously murdered Blocker's dearest soldier friends. In kind Blocker brutally killed the Cheyenne. Each believing that he was in the right. For unmarried Joseph doing "his job" is his only purpose. Mortal enemies Blocker and the Chief define each other. Their telling exchanges in Cheyenne have the gravitas of honor and mortality.

On the journey, Blocker and his men rescue broken Mrs. Quaid, played by Pike, in the aftermath of the murder of her entire family. Blocker reveals his gentleness as he reaches out his hand, "I'm not going to hurt you." Their journey is treacherous and costly. Alliances alter and reinvent. Find courage and faith in the hopeless. Discover one's redemption and forgiveness.

Christian Bale is at his best. He fearlessly explore

Post civil war frontier America and Christian Bale aka Captain Joseph Blockeris is ordered by the Army to escort a Cheyenne Chief, who has been granted safe passage back to his homeland in Montana, by the President of the United States, due to his terminal illness. Along the way the party encounter wild and dangerous Comanche "Indians". The movie is intense and I surmise Bale will be nominated for an Academy Award for this turn. Wes Studi, as always, as the ailing Chief, is marvelous, understated and ever so powerful. Rosamund Pike is superb as a deranged widow who is collected up by Bale's party. Her presence in the story seems like a distraction from the original mission or orders, but it's a movie and we have to have some man/woman tension and whatever then derives from that, of course. The movie sometimes slows down a bit, and lingers, but it always recovers, and overall - see this movie. And the music score is perfect.

Forget the talk of the film being slow, this isn't an action film or an old school shoot 'em up western, anyone looking for that should search elsewhere. Whilst there some great action scenes, where hostiles excels is in setting the tone for an early American world where law and order rest of gun power. The cinematography is exceptional, meanwhile Christian Bale is superb playing a army captain who is seemingly tough and unflinching but shows an undertone of melancholy, Rosamunde Pike pulls of a great performance as a woman thrust into the ugly world of war and anarchy by a brutal attack on her family home, a scene is exceptional and unapologetically shocking. Overall the film is about the futility of trying to civilise a wild land built on violence, and about the tragedy and the sheer pointlessness of conflict against fellow man.