The Western to Kevin Costner is like the water to James Cameron and the director’s latest dance with the genre that solidified his rightful place in cinematic history represents his boldest, grandest, most ambitious turn behind the camera yet.
Going into the Los Angeles premiere for Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 on Monday night, I admit to knowing little about the film beforehand, neither having read reviews nor advanced press other than the brief snapshot reports of Kevin Costner spending $38 million of his own money to get his beloved project greenlit after years of setbacks and false starts. In the spirit of honesty, I had been dreading the experience. To recap, just days prior, I suffered one of the worst lower back strains in recent years, rendering me borderline immobile, so the thought of sitting in a theater for three hours to watch a film for which I had little interest while a persistently sharp pain vibrated between my hips did not exactly get me in the moviegoing mood.
However, when the lights dimmed down and Kevin Costner walked out before the crowded theater to give his introductory speech, a magic came over me as I realized that I would be experiencing something American cinema has been in desperate need of: a filmmaker baring himself before the world on a grand scale.
“The movies remind me of how I want to be, how I want to behave in certain instances,” Costner told the audience in attendance on Monday night. “They’ve always been that kind of example to me. I know who I want to be on screen and I know who I don’t. This Western movie will challenge you and it will be obvious who you want to be and who you don’t want to be.”
With that eloquent speech in mind, I knew that Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 would be a special experience regardless of whatever flaws or shortcomings it might have. Three hours later, when the end credits rolled and the audience applauded, I climbed to my feet and limped out of the theater thankful for having witnessed all three uncut hours Costner’s unfiltered grand vision and looked forward to the next three hours in Chapter 2.
Now, lest people accuse me of bias due to my much-shared love for auteur filmmaking, let me be perfectly clear: Horizon has its share of issues, which do indeed hurt the film in areas where it should thrive. Having been away from the director’s chair for just over 20 years since 2003’s Open Range, Costner’s cinematic eye has unfortunately become somewhat tainted by the so-called “Golden Age of TV” and the Horizon cinematography often looks less like Dances with Wolves and more like Yellowstone, which is just a nice way of saying “made-for-TV.” Framing that should be wide and open often feel tight and closed. Colors that should be shaded and subdued often feel garish and overbearing. Lighting that should feel natural and layered often feel artificial and simple.
While the actors certainly give it a game try, some performances come across stilted and polished rather than grounded and tried, especially for people who have supposedly been living in the rough-and-tumble of the American frontier. Jeff Fahey (Lost, Wyatt Earp) gives the film’s best performance, followed by Michael Rooker, Abbey Lee, and, of course, Mr. Costner himself.
Paul Bois / Breitbart NewsHowever, where Horizon gets it right, Costner scores big enough for me to strongly recommend you buy a ticket. For starters, despite its three-hour runtime, not once did the film leave me bored or staring at my watch desperately hoping for the end. Quite the opposite, in fact. I found the story engaging, the themes rich, and the ambition grand. True to his promise, Costner weaves a multi-layered story composed of loosely connected threads about America’s westward expansion in the latter days of the Civil War. He leaves no stone unturned in this. We get Union Soldiers, we get Native Americans, we get grizzled frontiersmen, we get outlaws, we get hot-headed gunslingers, we get prostitutes, we get caravans, we get townspeople, we get Chinese rail workers, we get every single character that has been a staple of the Western genre since John Ford yelled “action” on Straight Shooting. Much to my amazement – and you really have to tip your hat to Costner for achieving this – every single character in Horizon felt distinct, unique, and, most of all, memorable. You genuinely grow to care about their situations and feel the emotions that Costner asks of you, be it dread, sadness, or hope.
The same can be said for the settings, which, like the characters, become numerous and sprawling. From its weathered towns to its makeshift encampments, the set-pieces for Horizon carry a degree of weight, gravity, and stress. They feel like lived-in spaces, transporting viewers to a time and place that has long past and will never be again.
Between films like Kevin Costner’s Horizon or Josh Margolin’s Thelma or Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders, June offered an interesting lineup of movies that catered to all demographics, marking a much-welcome turn from the usual big-budget popcorn fare dominant throughout this season. More to the point, like Francis Ford Coppola with the upcoming Megalopolis, Costner’s willingness to bare himself on a grand scale represents a breath of fresh air in a cinematic landscape dominated by algorithms, formulas, and social media trends.
Who knows! This just might be a new frontier in cinema that Kevin Costner has bravely ventured into. Let’s just hope he can plant the flag and tough it out as the winter sets in.
Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning Christian tech thriller, EXEMPLUM, which has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes critic rating and can be viewed for FREE on YouTube or Tubi. “Better than Killers of the Flower Moon,” wrote Mark Judge. “You haven’t seen a story like this before,” wrote Christian Toto. A high-quality, ad-free rental can also be streamed on Google Play, Vimeo on Demand, or YouTube Movies. Follow him on X @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.
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