Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 Review: A Sprawling Vision in Need of Cohesion

It’s been more than 30 years in the making, but Kevin Costner’s ambitious Western vision has finally begun to unfold. Originally envisioned as a single film back in 1988, the project has transformed into an epic multi-part saga. We now have the first installment to take in, titled Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter One.

Stretching nearly three hours, this opening chapter aims to set the stage for Costner’s expansive tale of America’s westward expansion. The film juggles an ensemble cast and interweaving storylines, taking place between 1859 and 1860 across territories that became Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and beyond.

Among the many threads are settlers pushing into unclaimed land, risking attack from Indigenous tribes rightfully protecting their home; wagon trains braving arduous journeys along the Oregon Trail; hopeful homesteaders establishing a village called Horizon; and the ever-present threat of unlawful violence looming large.

Through lush scenery, impressive production qualities, and solid performances, Costner and company do succeed in transporting us to the foreboding yet striking landscape of the early frontier. However, with so much ground to cover in a challenging three hours, this first chapter never quite brings its many moving parts together into a fully compelling drama. For now, it serves as a vast introduction, one that hints at greater rewards if the frontier saga fully reaches its destination.

Western Frontiers

The sweeping frontier landscapes of Horizon hold many interwoven tales as settlers push further west in the late 1850s. Near an Arizona river valley, three surveyors marking land are found dead, with an ominous sign left behind. Not long after, the bustling town of Horizon is established on the spot, promising folks a new homestead.

But the territory belongs to the Apache, led by brothers Pionsenay and Taklishim. Seeing the white interlopers as invaders, they make a brutal attack on the unsuspecting community. During the rampage, Frances Kittredge barricaded her family in their home, hoping the walls would hold against the violence outside. Few make it out alive.

With the town now ashes, Lieutenant Trent Gephardt brings army protection to the ragged survivors. Among them is Frances, left widowed with two children. Gephardt does his best to explain the root of the Apache aggression, but revenge still smolders in others, like young Russell.

Elsewhere, Marigold finds herself tasked with caring for the infant son of Lucy, who goes on the run after a deadly gunfight. The boy soon draws unwanted attention, including from the deadly Sykes brothers out for blood. When enigmatic loner Hayes Ellison wanders into their path, his pragmatic skills may help spread some order on the turbulent frontier.

Across the territory, wagon captain Matthew Van Weyden faces dangers of his own, guiding settlers through the rocky terrain. Yet guiding people through hard times is nothing compared to Earl and Juliette, a pampered British couple who signed up for far more than they knew. As Van Weyden tries drumming some frontier reality into them, many more challenges may yet test these travelers pushing west.

Perspectives on Progress

Costner takes on an ambitious task with Horizon’s interweaving stories, though keeping them all coherent over three hours proves challenging. The film flits between the fates of settlers, soldiers, pioneers, and natives, with consequences that don’t always land. While beauty exists in capturing slices of this era, some pieces feel more like setups than fully realized story arcs.

We meet rugged frontiersmen and resilient women, yet we don’t always follow them long enough to care what befalls them. Costner establishes interesting hooks, like a troubled loner finding purpose or an outcast fighting for her people, but leaves them feeling unfinished. With such an epic canvas, focusing on select threads may have allowed deeper dives.

Horizon’s structures feel episodic at times, as if delaying conclusions to entice returns for subsequent installments. A TV-style model risks weakening individual works and questions whether this saga truly needed to unfold across four films rather than standing strongly on its own. Costner clearly aims to say more than prior Westerns about interactions between settlers and natives, yet splitting the story risks diluting its impact.

Audiences seem to find it imperfect, but its ambitions are admirable. By reframing stereotypes and acknowledging hard truths, Costner advances discussions that past directors avoided. Horizon’s scope encompasses all who struggled here and their complex connections to the place. With patience and insight, perhaps this saga’s future chapters will tighten its sprawling visions into a long-lasting epic for the ages.

Exploring the Frontier

Kevin Costner’s Horizon seems to take on a great deal in its three-hour running time but faces challenges in sustaining momentum and fully developing its characters and stories. Spreading several plotlines across expansive frontier landscapes makes for gorgeous visuals, but leaves little time for any one thread to really hook the viewer.

We are introduced to too many characters too quickly as the film jumps between story arcs in different locations. Without sufficient time in each setting, no one emerges as particularly compelling, and it’s easy to feel lost within the many names and faces. Some critics have noted that this complex structure may have worked better as a limited series that could slow down and flesh out particular characters’ journeys over multiple episodes.

The pacing is especially questionable given that the film is meant to be a standalone entry, yet it spends much of its length simply laying the narrative groundwork. While laying the foundations for future installments, it stalls its own story and leaves the chapter’s conclusion unsatisfyingly open-ended. Viewers watching what they believe to be a self-contained film may feel their time has not been respectfully earned.

For a subject as epic in scope as America’s Westward expansion, it’s a shame more care wasn’t taken with the critical aspect of delivery. Horizon hints at ambition but loses control of its sprawling canvas. Perhaps with a tightening of focus and a format allowing deeper dives into each setting, Costner’s vision may yet find its rhythm. As it stands, this first chapter struggles to immerse viewers in its frontier sights and lives as fully as intended.

Profiles in frontier perseverance

While the epic scale of Horizon aims to capture the sweep of history, the film is sometimes held back by its struggling characters. Though populated by a starry cast, many figures are more symbols of Western themes than flesh-and-blood people. Still, a few performances stand out for their nuance.

Sam Worthington brings reserved dignity to Lieutenant Gephardt. Between military duties, he forms a muted bond with the steadfast Frances Kittredge, played with grief-tested grace by Sienna Miller. Her character’s determination to forge ahead, despite personal tragedy, is felt deeply. Jena Malone is also affected as the troubled Ellen, a woman pushing past mistakes towards redemption.

Kevin Costner’s Hayes Ellison is introduced too late to flesh it out fully, though the role plays to Costner’s strengths of experiencing hardship with hardened resolve. His lone wandering is a defiant act of self-reliance in a risky landscape. Costner hints at deep wells of experience and moral fortitude beneath his character’s rugged quiet.

Others have less opportunity to shine through. Abbey Lee’s Marigold never moves beyond cursory traits, undercutting her storyline’s intent. The lack of time spent developing characters hurts the ensemble approach. Danielle Pineda brings empathy to the Native role of Pionsenay’s wife, Alena, while facing sexism in her tribe.

Overall, while constrained by its sprawling multiplicity of plotlines, the strongest performances inject humanity into Horizon’s historical reach. They illustrate how courage and compassion can persist against bleak odds. If the next chapters deepen such nuanced profiles over bombast, this saga may achieve its ambitious promise to portray frontier lives with care and insight.

Representing Native Voices

The approach to Native American representation in Horizon generated both praise and criticism. While the film eventually aims to show Indigenous perspectives with sympathy, some felt it took too long to establish them as more than villains attacking settlers.

We see early attacks from the viewpoint of the Apache, but the narrative initially centers more on white characters reacting to the violence. It’s only later that we gain insight into the Native fathers’ warnings about an inevitable cycle of conflict as their ancestral lands face invasion.

Costner works to bring nuance by acknowledging the Apache resistance as a response to occupation, not wanton aggression. We meet the elders, who counsel caution over escalation. But with limited screen time for Native characters compared to roles like Frances, more depth may have strengthened the film’s handling of this crucial issue. The score also reserved its most empathetic cues for white protagonists, a choice some found discordant. More focus on portraying Indigenous lives, not just resistance, could have elevated the challenging task of justice and understanding between such disparate cultures.

It’s telling that other recent Westerns give far greater presence to Native voices through full Indigenous ownership, like Reservation Dogs. But Horizon still made an effort that exceeded the one-dimensional foes of classic Westerns. With future installments, perhaps Costner can further develop Native characters driving their own stories across this sweeping frontier rather than merely reacting to white settlers. The saga offers chances to keep refining its complex and needed examination of America’s past.

Rising to the Ranges

Kevin Costner has long been a pioneer of the Western genre, with accomplishments like Dances With Wolves and Open Range expanding beyond the formulas of the past. Horizon certainly carries visual nods to those grand epics framing vast open landscapes. Sweeping vistas showcase sandstone canyon country and emerald valley floors, putting audiences on the back of saddles gusting down dirt trails.

Cinematography spreads like rolling terrain as far as the eye can traverse. Muiro’s camera rises to rocky ridges and peers down grizzled gulches carved over eons. Within these frames, unsettled frontier tensions play out. Hard-scrabble homesteads take root against nature’s indifference. Yet narrative strands pulling characters across the ranges sometimes strain to find their footing.

Horizon tells of dreams colliding with harsh reality on the growing frontier, but ambitions outstrip the first steps taken. Interwoven tales introduce people apart whose lives could converge if only threads were drawn tighter. With time, however, trajectories may yet align through chapters still unseen. For now, scattered storylines scatter focus, as Western tradition expects unity at the journey’s end. Costner remains mounted to push into an unknown country, and patience may reward those keeping pace.

Horizon’s Western Vistas

Kevin Costner’s Horizon boasts breathtakingly photographed landscapes that transport viewers to the American frontier. Cinematographer J. Michael Muro captures the rugged splendor of the southwest—from red rock cliffs and emerald valleys to sweeping grasslands stretching to the horizon.

These vivid backdrops anchored the action and immersed audiences in the period. Settlements like Horizon sprang up amid such natural wonders, the film reminded us, yet settlers faced incredible hardships and dangers on the range.

Horizon’s production design also succeeded in recreating the late 1850s era. From settler cabins and wagon trains to military forts, costume design and structures felt authentically worn by the weather and trials of travel. Viewers could almost smell the dust and smoke of dilapidated frontier towns.

The climactic Apache attack scene, filmed within the claustrophobic confines of a family home, heightens tensions as flames engulf the structure. Through such stirring sequences, Costner transported viewers to the violent realities of western expansion amid lush terrain still explored by Native tribes. Horizon offers a grand theatrical vision of America’s formative frontier period that remains impressive on a visual level.

Horizon’s Epic Scope and Unfulfilled Potential

Kevin Costner’s Horizon aims high in its scope, telling a sprawling story about the settlement of the American frontier. Across generations-spanning vistas, it strives to do justice to the multifaceted lives and cultures that met amid changing borders and rising tensions. However, in this first chapter, the ambition outweighs the execution. With more characters and timelines than its three hours can lend depth to, the narrative spreads itself thin.

Yet amongst the shortcomings reside seeds of something that, with cultivation, could grow into a significant work. Glimpses of the human toll of colonization and the dignity of indigenous resistance against injustice show Horizon may become a vehicle for perspectives rarely seen. And Costner’s ability to immerse viewers in place and period remains compelling.

If future installments tighten their focus while broadening understanding, Horizon could transcend the flaws of this beginning. With more time to breathe between its many pieces, the overarching story may find room to achieve its noble aims. It offers thought-provoking spaces to explore and moving vistas to transport audiences, even if this first chapter struggles to bring all elements into harmony. For those still curious where the settler-native conflict may lead, Horizon maintains potential if its scope is better matched to its medium.