Hostiles was written and directed by Scott Cooper and stars Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike and Wes Studi. Hostiles follows famous and legendary captain Joseph J. Blocker (Christian Bale) as he escorts a Cheyenne Chief (Wes Studi) through treacherous and dangerous territory. Hostiles is one of those movies that instantly let's the audience know what they're in for within the opening scenes. Fortunately, for Hostiles this turned out to be a very heart tugging and emotional movie. Hostiles is easily one of the best performed and emotional movies I have seen in a while. Largely in part to the performances by Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike. I instantly fell in love with everything this movie had to offer and found myself edging closer the end of my seat during most scenes. I was blown away by how subtle this movie was. Hostiles commanded the attention of the audience, attention that was very well deserved. I hadn't even seen a preview for Hostiles and walked in completely blind. This was one of the best decisions I have made in a while. Hostiles is a movie that just deserves to be seen, while I don't think it would ever be a film that earned an Oscar, it is a movie that sets Scott Cooper up for a gigantic win and a long successful career.
Let's dive into what worked about this movie:
1. Acting and Characters- As I said prior, the performances in this film were spectacular. I was invested in the characters I was watching, it was heartbreaking to experience things with them. A large part of this is due to the way these characters were set up and introduced. Hostiles is a slow moving film, it takes its time with virtually every scene. The flow of this movie was perfect, because it was slow building we got to see the development and redemption of almost every character on scene. And the characters that didn't reach their complete arch they were sent out in a way that matched who they were completely. A lot of movies recently will rush the setup of a character to further get to the meat of the story. With Hostiles it was the opposite, the meat of the story was the characters. So by allowing them to become fully fleshed out characters this movie was elevated to a completely different level. Rosamund Pike easily had the best scene in the film, it was truly heartbreaking. I was impressed by the acting and the characterization in this movie.
2. Cinematography- The cinematography was very good mainly because it was filmed in a way that it allowed for the audience to experience this movie it such a true and gritty sense. Hostiles was shot by Masanobu Takayanagi who is best known for films like the 2015 Oscar winning Spotlight. Takayanagi was able to bring that style of dramatic film to this western which translated expertly. The use of wide shots in Hostiles was perfect, namely during the actions sequences. I love that the decision to use wide shots was made, by shooting action sequences in a wide shot it allows the audience to take everything in. There are no distracting cuts or shaky edits. It is just placed on screen and allows for the audience to watch the actors work. I believe that good cinematography takes the back seat to the actors, it gives them and the director room to work and to get creative. Cinematography is important to capturing tone as well if a movie fails to have cinematography that doesn't match the script or performances it can feel off. For example, Wes Anderson's film Moonrise Kingdom utilizes the camera almost as a character. Moonrise Kingdom has some of the best crash zooms I have seen used in recent years. By allowing the camera to almost become a character it added a sense of humor that the movie just wouldn't have reached without it. Hostiles did the exact same thing. Takayanagi use slow movements and gigantic wides to add the already slow moving tone of the film
This movie wasn't perfect:
1. 3rd act and ending- Part of me was very disappointed in the ending of the film. Not because it wasn't good; Hostiles just ended in a way that didn't match anything else we'd seen up to that point. This movie was almost hopeless at times and very bleak. I felt interested in that tone and I was captivated by the lives of these characters. With the ending it just felt like this shoehorned and last ditch attempt to create a sense of happiness. But this movie was not meant to be a happy and bright film, it was a character study in a very hard time. So tonally it just didn't feel like it matched everything perfectly.
Overall, I had a great time while watching the movie Hostiles. I thought it was a fantastic way to kick off the year of 2018 and I am excited for the future movies put out by Scott Cooper. I wish the ending was as consistent as the rest of the film tonally but I was still captivated by every other aspect of the film. Hostiles is one of those films I think everyone should watch. The themes, acting and cinematography are some of the best I have seen in recent years. I am going to give Hostiles an A.
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