Hostiles (2017)

Christian Bale is Capt. Joseph Blocker, a veteran cavalry officer ordered to escort a dying Indian Chief Yellow Hawk back home to the Valley of the Bears in Montana.

It’s an order Blocker isn’t inclined to follow. Yellow Hawk is a once vicious old foe, responsible for the death of at least one of Blocker’s friends.

But this captain is near retirement and in danger of court martial and losing his pension if he doesn’t comply.

So he sets out for Montana with Yellow Hawk, his son Black Hawk, two female relatives, a young boy named Little Bear and a small patrol of four soldiers.

They gain another traveling companion when they come across a burned out homestead and Rosalee Qunn (Rosamund Pike), a woman near mad with grief after watching a Comanche war party kill her husband and three children.

The family buried, the party continues the long trek. And the untrusting Blocker insists the Indian males ride in chains.

But more than once, Indians and whites will need to band together to complete a journey plagued by white fur traders, warring Indians and bigoted ranchers.

Review:

Director Scott Cooper and a talented cast certainly delivers for genre fans desperate for a well-done, big-budget Western in the 2010s.

“Hostiles” grabs your attention with the film-opening massacre at the Quaid ranch and holds it thanks in part to superb performances by Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike.

Bale is a cavalry commander every bit as vicious as the Indians he reviles and revels in memories of those he’s killed.

Pike pumps a pistol full of bullets into a dead Comanche who took part in the raid on her family’s home, but is better equipped to sympathize with the plight of her Cheyenne traveling companions.

In a DVD extras interview, Cooper said he was determined to make a movie that served as a commentary on current race relations. If “Hostiles” has a drawback, it’s that his message seems a bit heavy handed.

Given his past, Blocker’s transformation seems implausible. So does the end result of all the carnage.

Directed by:
Scott Cooper

Cast:
Christian Bale … Capt. Joseph Blocker
Rosamund Pike … Rosalee Quaid
Wes Studi … Chief Yellow Hawk
Rory Cochrane … Master Sgt. Thomas Metz
Jonathan Majors … Corp. Henry Woodson
Jesse Plemons … Lt. Rudy Kidder
Timothee Chalamet … Pvt. Philippe DeJardin
Stephen Lang … Col. Abraham Briggs
Adam Beach … Black Hawk
Xavier Horsechief … Little Bear
Q’orianka Kilcher … Elk Woman
Tanaya Beatty … Living Woman
Ben Foster … Philip Wills
Ryan Bingham … Sgt. Paul Malloy
Paul Anderson … Corp. Tommy Thomas
Peter Mullan … Lt. Col. Ross McCowan
Brian Duffy … Silas Lounde

Runtime: 134 min.

Memorable lines:

Col. Abraham Briggs: “The chief (Yellow Hawk) and his family have been prisoners for nearly seven years. I’d say that’s punishment enough. Wouldn’t you?”
Capt. Joseph Blocker: “There ain’t enough punishment for his kind.”

Capt. Joseph Blocker, ordered to take Yellow Hawk and his family back to the Valley of the Bears in Montana: “With due respect, sir, I’m not leading the cutthroat and his brood of bastards and bitches anywhere.”

Capt. Joseph Blocker: “I’ve killed savages. I’ve killed plenty of them. Cause that’s my fuckin’ job.”
Newspaperman Jeremiah Wilks: “And from what I hear, captain, there was never a man happier in his work.”

Rosalee Quinn: “Do you believe in the Lord, Joseph?”
Capt. Joseph Blocker: “Yes I do, ma’am. But he’s been blind to what’s been going on out here for a long time.”

Philip Wills to Capt. Joseph Blocker: “Who have you become, Joe? … Spittin’ on your men’s graves by saving this savage. If you don’t avenge them, what did they die for?”

Rosalee Quinn to Capt. Joseph Blocker: “Sometimes, I envy the finality of death. The certainty. And I have to drive those thoughts away when I’m weak.”

Silas Lounde to Rosalee Quinn: “Something tells me, you ain’t got the nerve to fire that, woman.”