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'Hostiles': Savagery and Apologetics

Posted by Billy Wonka on January 27, 2018 at 08:14:02:
The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted." - D. H. Lawrence/1923
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That's one of the first things you see and it is a projection of what the film is about. Bale plays first fiddle to this and is reluctant to take a savage chief (who he has seen carving up soldiers) back to his homeland to die. Along the way, his attitude changes but his dark, American soul resists and fights back till the bitter end.

The was a very low-key story that deloped on a very slow rolling pace once we get to Bale and his soldiers. The film opens up with Pike's family being slaughtered by the local Commanches and her distraught grief that carries on for quite a while. (Can this woman ever look bad?) She is rescued by Bales detail along the way to Montana where Chief Yellow Hawk (Studi) will be released with his immediate family.

Many things happen along the way that helps to soften Bale's soul but not completely heal it.

The film uses devices to beleaguer the mistreatment of Indians in the face of Bale's actual experiences "in the field". His life is a direct contradiction of the sympathy that seems to be an outpouring from most of the public.

Four out of five wonks.

Bale was very muted and soft-spoken, so much so I thought I was going to have to buy a hearing aid. The same with Rory Cochrane who was Bale's friend and comrade-in-arms. Pike put in a great performance with her overwhelming grief fading into a hardened frontier woman. And Wes Studi played the ever-stoic chief who becomes an ally out of necessity and human decency.

Not a feel-good film. But, it is compelling and you will be glued to it.