I like Kevin Costner. I always have - from Field of Dreams to that other big western he did Dances with Wolves. I even liked Waterworld - that movie where everyone is filthy but they live in a world covered in water. And I guess I’ll not bury the lead here - I was excited enough about Horizon to drag my daughter to it for a 3-hour Sunday matinee. It was a pretty film with a powerful score and a lot of really great actors - but I can’t really say what the story was. Three hours and the story isn’t clear.
It’s something like some people get attacked by Apache as they try to steal Apache land and then some of the survivors go to get revenge while others go to a town closer to a Union Army fort and some bad people (are they though?) in Montana have a horrible family and a guy in Wyoming meets a prostitute and before he can even sleep with her (but after a bath) he ends up killing one of the Montana guys - oh and there is a wagon train that has no connection to any of that but does have some German/Russian bad guys in it that don’t mind watching a ridiculously prim and proper English lady who seems along for a joyride take a bath with their precious drinking water (is it possible that Costner is making fun of himself and Waterworld by showing American pioneer women being so clean with no water around for miles - they are infinitely cleaner than the characters in Waterworld). Oh - the Apache also get a little bit of story arc - one half of the band wants to stay in the mountains and avoid the ‘white eyes’ but the other half are hell bent on driving the invaders away with death and warfare.
As for the characters - there’s a mysterious horse trader, a Union officer, some kids (Apache and settler), the dysfunctional Montana family, the head of the wagon train, and the pretty prostitute - but none of them ever meet. There are also a whole bunch of NPCs who may or may not prove important - Chinese immigrants, an African American couple, a Confederate liquor trader, and some of the wagon folks.
That’s about it - that’s as good a summary of the three hours I can give except to say the atrocious behavior of American settlers stands out starkly.
And despite all that - it still felt pretty captivating. It was well acted, beautifully composed, and not particularly boring even with no resolution and nothing really happening. It was like an episode of Seinfeld but without the humor. I suppose part of what kept us in our seats was the fascination of knowing just how awful the true history was. The other part was the sweeping landscape and the feeling that it was heading somewhere - even though Chapter One headed precisely nowhere. It left us hanging without even a compelling cliff-hanger - just waiting for something to happen.
Do I recommend it? Yes, maybe - well, maybe not. Definitely don’t go see it in the once beautiful Dole Cannery Theatre in Honolulu which now smells like someone peed in it and it didn’t get cleaned up. Don’t get refreshments there because when you ask “How much is the double combo?” the clerk who definitely doesn’t get paid enough to care will tell you “I’m not sure - do you want a ballpark figure?” and then just rings something else up for you that costs more. Don’t get there early because the theater was dark until several minutes after the movie is scheduled and then we had (not an exaggeration) 35 minutes of commercials (not trailers, commercials) mixed with several trailers. So, definitely don’t go watch it there - in fact, maybe just wait and watch it at home so you can pause it to take bathroom breaks.