By John Corrado

Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is the first in what the actor and filmmaker intends to be a four part saga chronicling America in the 1860s. And it’s hard not to admire Costner for betting everything on crafting this largely self-financed Western saga.

The film finds Costner returning to the Western genre over thirty years after his Oscar-winning Dances With Wolves, and over twenty years since Open Range, and it’s just solid, old school filmmaking craft all around. This very much feels like a first chapter overall, but it’s still easy to get swept up in the scope and ambition of it all.

The film introduces us to a number of characters and side plots, mainly serving to immerse us in the world of the America in the 1860s. It’s an ambitious goal, with Costner crafting a sort of slice-of-life feel at times that just happens to be unfolding in the frontier West, as characters settle the land during the Civil War.

The saga is named for a settlement known as “Horizon” that is being established in the San Pedro Valley. When families are killed in a raid by Western Apache warriors who attack and burn the town, Frances Kittredge (Sienna Miller) and her daughter Elizabeth (Georgia MacPhail) flee with Union Army leader Lt. Trent Gephardt (Sam Worthington). The first hour features some of the most thrilling moments, as Costner depicts the horrifying siege on Horizon with gripping suspense and striking imagery lensed by his cinematographer J. Michael Muro.

Over the course of the three hours, the screenplay (which Costner co-wrote with Jon Baird) introduces us to a variety of other characters. Costner himself appears in the film’s second hour as Hayes Ellison, a horse trader riding through the Wyoming Territory, who befriends a local prostitute named Marigold (Abbey Lee). Later on, we meet Matthew Van Weyden (Luke Wilson), who is leading a wagon train travelling through the Montana Territory.

This is a sprawling, Old West epic that finds Costner paying earnest tribute to the work of classic filmmakers like John Ford. It’s a work indebted to the Western genre’s past, though writ with a slightly more updated perspective. Namely, the Indigenous characters are introduced and a bit more sketched out here than they would have been in Old Westerns (when some settlers seek revenge on the Apache, they are warned to draw a distinction between the warriors who carried out the siege, and the innocent Natives who shouldn’t be punished for it but are at risk of being scalped for money).

It’s easy to admire the scope and ambition of Horizon: An American Saga, while also admitting that, on its own, Chapter 1 can feel slightly incomplete. This is clearly designed as the first chapter in a four part saga, and it’s easy to imagine the film will feel more cohesive and satisfying in hindsight once we see the future instalments. There are a lot of characters being introduced and different threads that can make the film somewhat daunting, with several setups that will presumably only pay off down the road.

The final moments serve as a teaser of what is to come, with a fast-paced highlight reel showing brief glimpses of action and where these characters will end up. It’s worth noting that Chapter 2 has already been completed (and screened at Venice), but got its initial August theatrical release date pushed back to allow this one – a financial flop when it was released in theatres in June – to find more of an audience first.

This is a good, old fashioned Western from a filmmaker betting it all to bring it to the screen, with a sense of scale to it that can only be admired. It’s mainly worth watching Horizon for its excellent production design, a collection of fine performances, a handful of genuinely stirring moments, and its sweeping, classical score by John Debney. While the scope of the film is designed for cinemas, it’s also one that plays well settling into at home on your TV, especially with the rich detail and colour afforded by the 4K presentation.

Film Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)

Bonus Features (4K Ultra HD):

The 4K disc includes no bonus features, which are presumably being saved for a special edition box set sometime down the line containing the second instalment. A code for a digital copy is included in the package, which ships with a standard slipcover.

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is a Warner Bros. Home Entertainment release. It’s 181 minutes and rated R.

Street Date: September 10th, 2024