Director Kevin Costner has left his acclaimed Paramount+ series, Yellowstone, in order to pursue a passion project. Costner returns to the director’s chair in Horizon: An American Saga, which is an ambitious, sprawling multi-part western film franchise. Ambition is probably the most pertinent word, as he’s taken the Lord of the Rings blueprint of committing to filming multiple films before the first has hit theaters. In the post pandemic theatrical landscape, even IP can be seen as a risk for studios trying to navigate streaming and audiences appetite to leave their homes and make their way to the theater.

No studio would come on board the project and split the financial burden with Costner, leaving the Oscar winning director/actor to have to finance the films from his own private equity as well as any private investors that he was able to pitch and land as investors in the project.

A four-part, twelve-hour film series doesn’t come cheap, and Costner put a hundred million of his own money into the first two parts of Horizon: An American Saga. These four Westerns, if completed, will ultimately be a record in Hollywood… it just may not be the record Costner is hoping for as box office tracking for this first entry is severely under-performing. If the box office is a dismal as reporting suggest, part two in the franchise will likely be pulled from distribution (currently slated to arrive two months from now via New Line and Warner Bros).

I can’t say that Horizon Part One will wet one’s appetite for further investment in Costner’s vision for a story that is poorly structured and lacking in the creative spark that this artist once exuded in the 1990s. As the credits roll following the 170 minute runtime, you wonder if the tacked on trailer for Part Two will do any good for those souls that ventured to the cinema and were underwhelmed with Part One.

Before delving further into full analysis, it’s a good time to drop the trailer for part one for those of you who need a refresher.

Co-written with Jon Baird, Horizon Chapter One is divided into three parts: the early settlers of the town of Horizon in the San Pedro Valley and their massacre by the Apache; the late entry of an old gunslinger (Costner) who takes the noble task of defending a woman and her child who are on the run from vengeful gunmen; and lastly the journey of a wagon train of settlers as they make their way to Horizon. Of the aforementioned storylines, only the segment featuring Costner himself fulfills the emotional investment, high stakes, and intensity you would want to see on the big screen.

It’s perplexing that sixty minutes before Costner’s character is introduced, we spend copious amounts of time with the folks in a frontier town and only two of them survive the brutal Apache attack. As far as its narrative value, it could’ve been condensed to a disturbing flashback from Frances Kittredge (Sienna Miller) and her daughter and lost no effect on the audience.

Instead, we’re confined inside the battered Kittredge home as they try to fight off their indigenous attackers to little success. The attack is prolonged and unflinching in the violence depicted, Frances’ tragic backstory and then the obvious path to a relationship with Trent Gephart (Sam Worthington).

The more interesting narrative thread surrounds the young Apache warrior, Pionsenay (Owen Crow Shoe), who chooses to go against his elders and make aggressive moves in their war with the American settlers who are grabbing their territory. It also sets up the only character arc fully realized in part one, with young Russell (Etienne Kellici) escaping the massacre in the beginning to later witness a massacre of Apache, and as he observes the scalping of his enemy, it fails to provide the relief and retribution he sought. However, Costner’s script doesn’t give Russell a primary role as it’s juggling too many characters to fully realize which ones should actually get the narrative bandwidth.

Frontier justice is served in part one as Ellen Harvey (Jena Malone) shoots and kills her abusive husband before running off with her son. After the passage of time, we find Ellen living under the name Lucy with her young son. They are co-habitating with a prostitute, Marigold (Abbey Lee), in the Wyoming territory. This story line represents the finest moments that Costner delivers as director and co-writer, coincidentally it features him onscreen as Hayes Ellison, a rough edged gunslinger with a lingering sense of morality despite his considerable kill count.

Hayes is attracted to Marigold and it’s through this connection that he realizes the roommate, Ellen/Lucy, is in over her head as the troublesome Sykes brothers (well played by Jamie Campbell Bower and Jon Beavers). The brothers are looking to retrieve take her and her son, with the aims of retribution for the murder of her husband, who is their brother.

There’s an immediacy to the looming danger and the consequences of Lucy’s actions in slaying her husband, it’s far more intriguing than the prior hour of slow burn narrative. It’s not exactly reinventing anything as Costner’s script relies on the tried and true familiar trope of being “on the run” with a drifter reluctantly becoming the protector of the vulnerable woman and her child. However, this is the portion of the film that feels the most emotionally engaging, adding much needed stakes (lives on the line) and an urgency that’s lacking throughout the other narratives.

The weakest narrative is the wagon train segment led by Matthew Van Weyden (Luke Wilson). As an actor, Wilson has never been the most compelling (though I’ve enjoyed several of his dramedy turns from Old School to Henry Poole). Unfortunately, the role of Matthew Van Weyden and his interpretation of it remain another tepid entry in his filmography. The most significant conflict during this section isn’t even the protection of the wagon train, it’s whether or not a snooty British couple will assimilate to life on the prairie… could the stakes get any lower?

The pair are privileged to a cringe-inducing level and their two dimensional depiction does little to entertain the audience. Costner and his co-writer seem to think the lady bathing in the drinking water supply would add a spark of audience intrigue, but it feels gratuitous and forced… and this is before two scouts sneak a look at the bathing experience.

With this convoy headed to Horizon, it’s clear that Costner is setting up another bloody conflict with the indigenous Apache. The issue is these underwritten characters give us zero reasons to care whether they survive or perish in the future installments.

Cinematographer J. Michael Muro brilliantly captures the expansive setting and all its natural beauty, as well as the period costumes and production design. Muro is a real talent and longtime collaborator of Costner’s, notably 2003’s Open Range where he had worked his way up the chain from being a steadicam operator on Costner’s 1990 Oscar-winning film Dances with Wolves.

What’s most strange about the closing moments of, Horizon: An American Saga Chapter One is that runs through a montage of clips half advertising Chapter Two (due out in two short months). It’s a leisurely paced preview which lacks any context or dialogue to clue audiences into where the story might go. This tagged on trailer feels much like the entirety of the film, an effort that lacks memorable moments, a tight narrative and any semblance of stakes. We’re lacking the compelling personalities and character motivations that have previously been so evident in the works of Costner. In the end, it feels like a costly failure for Costner, beyond the financial elements but revisiting a genre that he had such regard for and was well regarded for his contributions to it.

Perhaps Eastwood had the right idea, you find a film like Unforgiven (which coincidentally Costner was chasing the rights to at the same time) and retire from the genre on a high note.

Letter Grade: D

About The Author

Founder, Awards Editor

Byron Burton is the Awards Editor and Chief Critic at Awards Focus and a National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Award winning journalist for his work at The Hollywood Reporter.

Byron is a voting member of the Television Academy, Critics Choice Association, and the Society of Composers & Lyricists (the SCL) for his work on Marvel's X-Men Apocalypse (2016). Working as a journalist and moderator, Byron hosts Emmy and Oscar panels for the major studios, featuring their Below The Line and Above The Line nominees (in partnership with their respective guilds).

Moderating highlights include Ingle Dodd's "Behind the Slate" Screening Series and their "Spotlight Live" event at the American Legion in Hollywood. Byron covered the six person panel for Universal's "NOPE" as well as panels for Hulu's "Pam & Tommy Lee" and "Welcome to Chippendales" and HBO Max's "Barry" and "Euphoria."

For songwriters and composers, Byron is a frequent moderator for panels with the Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL) as well as The ArcLight's Hitting the High Note Oscar series.

Byron's panels range from FX's Fargo to Netflix's The Crown, The Queen's Gambit, The Witcher & Bridgerton; HBO Max's The Flight Attendant, Hacks, Succession, Insecure, & Lovecraft Country; Amazon Studios' The Legend of Vox Machina, Wild Cat, & Annette; and Apple TV+s Ted Lasso, Bad Sisters, and 5 Days at Memorial.

In February of 2020, Byron organized and hosted the Aiding Australia Initiative; launched to assist in the restoration and rehabilitation of Australia's wildlife (an estimated 3 billion animals killed or maimed and a landmass the size of Syria decimated).

Participating talent for Aiding Australia includes Robert Downey Jr., Michael Keaton, Jeremy Renner, Harrison Ford, Jim Carrey, Josh Brolin, Bryan Cranston, Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, JK Simmons, Tobey Maguire, Alfred Molina, James Franco, Danny Elfman, Tim Burton, Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Tim Allen, Colin Hay, Drew Struzan, and Michael Rosenbaum.

Related Posts