WE ARE ALL HOSTILES.
In 1892, Army captain Joseph Blocker (Christian Bale) reluctantly accepts the mission to escort a dying Cheyenne war chief (Wes Studi) and his family to Montana, but they come across many dangers. Another hard-boiled picture from Scott Cooper, this one a revisionist Western about a military veteran and a Cheyenne leader who both have plenty of blood on their hands; a woman (Roseanne Pike) who’s traumatized after losing her whole family in a Comanche attack joins the party. A brutal and exciting look at the relationship between the white and indigenous populations, with a very good lead performance by Bale. Visually appealing, with a touching final scene.
2017-U.S. 134 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Scott Cooper, Ken Kao, John Lesher. Written and directed by Scott Cooper. Cast: Christian Bale (Joseph Blocker), Rosamund Pike (Rosalee Quaid), Wes Studi (Yellow Hawk), Jesse Plemons, Adam Beach, Rory Cochrane… Peter Mullan, Timothée Chalamet, Ben Foster.
Trivia: The film was based on an unproduced script by Donald E. Stewart who died in 1999.
Last word: “The native community, largely, has been extremely supportive. For me that’s the biggest reward because I want to tell their story about this dark and unforgivable past of American genocide. I was very, very moved when the Native community embraced the film the way that they did. It was critical for me to get it right. I worked every day with Native American advisors that were on the set when we were shooting, working with language, costumes, and their culture. Same with the Comanche that opened the film.” (Cooper, Collider)
