It’s a great movie that deserves to be seen in a movie theater, but most of what you have heard about the new film Horizon: An American Saga is wrong regarding the negative stuff. It’s a big, bold movie that tries to put its arms around American westward expansion and can almost touch its fingers on the other side. But it does do what many Westerns since the early days of cinema have done, and that captures the vast expanses of the West and American opportunity along the way that is simply magnificent. This was a western on the scope of How the West Was Won, made by a guy in Kevin Costner, who loves westerns and has built the best parts of his career by making them. It reminded me of an Alan Ekert novel from the Frontiersman series. Now, this will not win the Academy Awards. They will hate Costner for making this movie, so don’t expect any respect from the Hollywood machine for this Western series, which is the first of a projected four. They are filming the third installment as of the summer of 2024. The second part comes out in the middle of August. And I hope they complete part four. This is not a traditional way of making movies; you watch the first part in a movie theater for over three hours. Then, once all the primary characters are introduced, you have to return a few months later to see what happens next. At the end of Horizon: An American Saga Part One, we are just getting started on an epic story about the creation of America as a country, which is vastly ambitious. I would say, from Kevin Costner’s point of view, this is a love letter to all the blood it took to make America and to make a point about why it was worth it.
As a business decision, this is not built on the model Hollywood is built on today. Not all standard measures can be applied. This movie is made, I think, to try to save movie theaters from becoming the modern version of drive-ins. There are economic forces out there that are very consciously trying to destroy various American industries through woke politics, and Hollywood has fallen for the trap in many ways, willingly. The communist left has an agenda, and they have been attacking American Westerns for decades now. This movie, Horizon: An American Saga, is a purposeful rebellion against that trend. It is exceptionally well made by the same guy who directed Dances with Wolves. It has all that size and scope and then some. The problem with a movie like this is that the union labor costs are so outrageous now that it’s nearly impossible to make any large production without exceeding a 100 million dollar budget. As I watched the credits until the end, this is a big Hollywood movie with all the big labor that comes with such a production, so the financing doesn’t add up in a traditional way, as measured by The Hollywood Reporter. When John Ford made westerns like this, the budgets with unionized labor weren’t nearly so out of control. So they could afford to tell stories like this without all the fast-paced action of a summer blockbuster. This movie was designed to be presented significantly and for people to go to the theater to see it as opposed to streaming it at home. It’s so long that it keeps people in the movie theater for a long time buying snacks. And it could and should be seen several times. And that people will keep coming back for future installments to see the next parts. It’s an almost unheard-of financial model where Costner uses his personal money to help get the films out.
It doesn’t surprise me that the film only made 10 million dollars in its opening weekend. I mean, who is going to see it? It’s long, and they talk a lot. There aren’t many action scenes. It is filmed with traditional pacing; it reminded me of Little House on the Prairie or Gunsmoke in most of the movie. The camera angles are broad but set, and the actors do a lot of work talking. That’s not to say that everything isn’t interesting, but this isn’t a Marvel movie designed to be a billion-dollar box office generator. They aren’t trying to thrill you with a spectacular action scene every ten minutes. This is a plodding and deliberate movie made in the classic way to return to theaters after COVID-19, a Hollywood product that puts people back in their seats, not just for one event, but several times. It was an extraordinarily bold throwback to when Hollywood told these kinds of stories often, and for people looking for their country back after years of political turmoil, this movie is a stake in the ground to inspire people to deal with the enormity of creating the greatest country on the face of the earth, and not to apologize for it. Given the political situation we are all experiencing now, this is a movie for Trump supporters who want to Make America Great Again. While Hollywood does love Kevin Costner, they certainly won’t be happy with him making this movie; The industry has attacked him for it in every negative reporting avenue they could. But this is a project that Kevin Costner loves, and it shows. And it is worth sharing, for sure.
A lot has been made about how Indians are portrayed in this movie. Although they were brutal, I didn’t think they were shown in too harsh of a light. People thought of them as savages. It is the communist left who has told us that we were supposed to be in love with them and to think of them as indigenous people who were here first and that we took their land from them. I have a very different view of Indian life, and I do not see them as a superior culture who had a right to be in North America and that we took something from them. This movie, Horizon: An American Saga, gives the Indians more credit than I think they deserve. In history, they were migrants just like everyone else, looking for a life for themselves. But this living with nature crap is very much a globalist communist sentiment meant to control human behavior, not to do what humans were born to do, and that is to create. Horizon is a movie about the need for American expansion and the collision of those forces on one of the last free places on Earth. And as violent and challenging as it was, why did people do it? It’s a movie that explains to us through all the lenses a movie can provide. The effect is simply magnificent and different from any other movie experience that I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. I hope it works. It’s a massive gamble by Kevin Costner to put his life’s work into a movie like this and a series meant exclusively to be seen in a movie theater. Movie theaters need movies like this to stay open, and Costner is trying to start a trend. But the timing of it couldn’t have come at a better time. This is a movie for all of us, no matter what your political background. And America deserves this story to be told for its benefit. Because ultimately, it’s the main character and the point of the entire enterprise.
Rich Hoffman
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