When Kevin Costner plays “Cowboys and Indians” again, you know what to expect: a lonely guy stoically becoming a hero. His new directorial work “Horizon – An American Saga”, a 12-hour Western epic for cinema in four parts, is a soapy horse opera with a dusty retro feeling. The first three-hour installment rides into theaters on Thursday.
The Western genre is making a comeback this year – once again. But one man seems to have never really left this quintessentially American genre. Kevin Costner, always following in the footsteps of his idol John Ford (“The Searchers”), has directed his own Westerns since Lawrence Kasdan’s “Silverado” (1985). In 1990, he turned a melancholic late Western into a hit that won seven Oscars. It was, of course, “Dances with Wolves”, a drama that replaced the genre’s clichés with a more human portrayal of American Indigenous people.
Every imaginable genre cliché
Three decades and another Western (“Open Range” from 2003) later, Costner is back with his mega-epic “Horizon”, which he apparently wanted to fill with every imaginable genre cliché. Visually, he is unbeatable, and Costner has enlisted J. Michael Muro, the cinematographer who shot “Dances with Wolves”. Additionally, the music by John Debney is just the right amount of cheesy. However, there is too much Indian howling and too many images of men standing on cliff edges, stretching their weapons towards the sunset. The 69-year-old actor even included a scene where former Australian supermodel Abbey Lee climbs on him and “rides” him into a good night (Hollywood makes it possible).
What is difficult in 2024
The story begins in the early 1860s in the San Pedro Valley, where white settlers have established a small settlement called Horizon. But just before it can delve into details, indigenous warriors gallop in in the next scene and slaughter nearly everyone. Costner has directed this scene impeccably, but it is hard to watch in 2024 as angelic white women (including Sienna Miller) cower in fear while bloodthirsty natives wave their axes around.
Considering that Costner is the same man who made “Dances with Wolves”, this is jarring. He himself doesn’t ride into his film until an hour in. He plays a cool cowboy of the classic, silent type who gets embroiled in a dispute over a small child, forcing him and the prostitute (Abbey Lee) who is looking after the boy to flee.
Too much under one cowboy hat
This is just one of too many plotlines Costner tries to cram under one cowboy hat. Elsewhere, Sam Worthington (“Avatar”) plays a cavalry captain who falls in love with a survivor of the aforementioned massacre, and Luke Wilson (“Idiocracy”) plays a guy who drives a bunch of white settlers across the prairie.
Perhaps Costner has spent too much time in Taylor Sheridan’s hit series “Yellowstone”, a hyper-patriotic horse soap opera known for seemingly understanding the cultural tensions in America. He left the successful series and invested about $38 million of his own money to bring his passion project to life. In the U.S., the first chapter has, in any case, flopped at the box office.
For good reason, there are not many films like “Horizon” anymore: because artists like Martin Scorsese have carefully deconstructed this kind of reductive Western in “Killers of the Flower Moon”. Still, it is too early to say whether Costner’s mega-epic is also a cinematic mega-flop. The second part is set to hit domestic theaters on November 7, but the prospect of another three hours might even deter the most steadfast settler.
By Marietta Steinhart