Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1

Well my wife expressed interest in this Kevin Costner western, and since I am a pretty big fan of 1990's "Dances With Wolves", especially the four-hour director's cut, I was willing to invest the 180 minutes that the film's run time promised in this movie. FWIW, I have never seen the "Yellowstone" TV show that Costner has done in recent years, so can't compare it to that.

Anyway, I had mixed feelings about "Horizon", mostly on the negative side. The movie is a three hour western, that part of the billing is confirmed. But the "Saga" part, not nearly so much. "Horizon" does not IMO have any kind of compelling stories. Western cliches abound in this film. And while the movie reportedly cost $50 million, I didn't see it on the screen. I know $50m doesn't necessarily go far in today's movie making environment, but I was unimpressed by "Horizon's" production values. It has the look and feel of a TV show moreso than a real film. Maybe the money went to the cast - in addition to KC himself, we get good character actors like Luke Wilson, Danny Huston, Jena Malone, and Sam Worthington in various roles. But with so many great western epics, "Sagas" to compare it to, Horizon just doesn't come off looking very good.

That said, Costner has always had a knack for making commercially appealing movies, and Horizon has some of that. While the film was utterly surface level and unsurprising, I was never bored, never dozed off during the entire 180 minutes. And, I will probably end up going to see "Chapter 2" when it is released in a couple of months. So there obviously was enough entertainment value there, for me at least.

C .... Can't recommend it on the merits, but I also can't dismiss it either.

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

• Rotten Tomatoes 51% (160 Reviews)

• Metacritic: 49 (47 Reviews)

Reviews

The Hollywood Reporter:

Working from a discursive screenplay he co-wrote with Jon Baird, Costner is not at his best as a director with this kind of multi-branched narrative. He struggles to keep all the story’s plates spinning, as characters are sidelined and resurface with too little connective tissue.

Deadline:

For Costner, this is an impressive beginning, with the promise of more to come.

Variety:

There’s a hallowed place in cinema for multi-character dramas. But “Horizon,” simply put, doesn’t feel like a movie. It feels like the seedbed for a miniseries. Much of what happens is wispy and not very forceful; the film doesn’t build in impact, and it seldom seems to aim in a clear direction.

The Telegraph (4/5):

The film is earnest yet hopeful, with crisply drawn characters - but perhaps its full grandeur won’t be fully realised until part two.

Total Film (4/5):

A rigorous and handsome drama, finely hewn by Costner and his cast, this is an absorbing ride into the Old West.

Screen Daily:

Beautifully shot, with a deft command of period detail and a starry ensemble cast, Costner’s Civil-war set epic offers an old-fashioned celebration of the pioneer spirit – and a clutch of storylines that never quite have time to engage before the film moves on.

The Playlist (C-):

Despite the shootouts, some epic vistas (frankly, not as much as you’d expect), and a few fleeting moments of genuine tension, it all feels flat.

Indiewire (C-):

These aren’t characters so much as the spokes of a plot in human form, each of their storylines moving as if being pulled by horses across the entire span of the American West.

The Guardian (2/5):

In some ways, Horizon reminded me of Costner’s 2003 western Open Range, but that had a much more interesting performance from Costner and first-rate support from Robert Duvall and Michael Gambon. The acting here is far less impressive, and less directed. There isn’t much on the horizon here

Collider (4/10):

Credit where credit is due, Kevin Costner has made what is essentially a three-hour prologue into something that is occasionally moderately entertaining. However, just as often, Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 woefully wanders every which way.

The Daily Beast (Skip This):

The biggest problem with Horizon is that, even with its lengthy running time, Costner has only scratched the surface of the “saga” he’s trying to tell. There is no arc to what happens, just the seemingly unending introduction of characters.

Vanity Fair:

At least Horizon accomplishes one staggering feat: it makes one wonder if we were maybe a little too hard on The Postman.

Synopsis:

In the great tradition of Warner Bros. Pictures’ iconic Westerns, “Horizon: An American Saga” explores the lure of the Old West and how it was won—and lost—through the blood, sweat and tears of many. Spanning the four years of the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, Costner’s ambitious cinematic adventure will take audiences on an emotional journey across a country at war with itself, experienced through the lens of families, friends and foes all attempting to discover what it truly means to be the United States of America.

Cast:

• Kevin Costner as Hayes Ellison

• Sienna Miller as Frances Kittredge

• Sam Worthington as First Lt. Trent Gephardt

• Giovanni Ribisi as Roland Bailey

• Danny Huston as Colonel Houghton

• Michael Rooker as Sgt. Major Riordan

• Jena Malone as Ellen/Lucy

• Michael Angarano as Walter Childs

• Abbey Lee as Marigold

• Jamie Campbell Bower as Caleb Sykes

• Jon Beavers as Junior Sykes

• Owen Crow Shoe as Pionsenay

• Tatanka Means as Taklishim

• Wasé Chief as Liluye

• Luke Wilson as Matthew Van Weyden

• Ella Hunt as Juliette Chesney

• Tom Payne as Hugh Proctor

• Will Patton as Owen Kittredge

• Isabelle Fuhrman as Diamond Kittredge

• Jeff Fahey

• Thomas Haden Church

• Alejandro Edda

• Tim Guinee

• Colin Cunningham

• Scott Haze

• Angus Macfadyen

• Douglas Smith

• Michael Provost

• Kathleen Quinlan as Annie Pine

• Larry Bagby

• James Russo

• Dale Dickey as Mrs. Sykes

• Hayes Costner

• James Landry Hébert

• Dalton Baker

• Georgia MacPhail

• Naomi Winders

• Austin Archer

• Charles Baker

Directed by: Kevin Costner

Written by: Jon Baird and Kevin Costner

Story by: Jon Baird and Kevin Costner

Produced by: Kevin Costner, Howard Kaplan, Mark Gillard

Cinematography: J. Michael Muro

Edited by: Miklos Wright

Music by: John Debney

Running time: 181 minutes

Release date: June 28, 2024

While I like Westerns and Kevin Costner, I saw that Horizons is just over a 3-hour movie so will be closer to 4 hours by the time ads and previews are factored in. After sitting through Oppenheimer last year, I'm not sure I want to do another 3-hour movie. If directors keep going for longer and longer movies, we need to bring back intermissions so that I don't have to choose between going to the restroom and missing part of the movie or not getting snacks/soda so that I can sit for 3.5-4 hours without needing to pee.

I will continue to update this post as the score changes.

Verified Audience Score History:

• 70% (3.90/5) at 50+

• 72% (3.90/5) at 100+

• 69% (3.80/5) at 250+

• 71% (3.90/5) at 500+

Rotten Tomatoes: Rotten

Critics Consensus: Kevin Costner doesn't lack for ambition as he sketches this frontier saga across the widest of canvases, but Horizon's first chapter proves too diffuse in scope for it to satisfy as a self-contained endeavor.

Metacritic: 46 (38 Reviews)

Sample Reviews:

As a stand-alone film (which it isn’t, but let’s pretend for a moment), “Horizon” is by turns convoluted, ambitious, intriguing, and meandering. But it’s never quite moving. - Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Any of these plotlines might have sustained an hour of compelling television but they don’t add up to much in this awkwardly stitched quilt, which rarely provides the space for anyone’s experiences to resonate. - David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

A spectacularly unsubtle movie. 1.5/4 - Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

“Horizon” is the kind of auteur project that makes one long for the idea of studio notes, for anyone to push back on Costner’s worst instincts. Unfortunately, he proves to be the judge, jury and executioner of his own passion project. 1.5/4 - Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service

The film may be pretty to look at, but this passion project isn’t likely to generate much of it. - Kyle Smith, Wall Street Journal

The dark reality of manifest destiny is a worthy topic, and worthy of a much better film. One in which we have even a modicum of investment in any of the characters. 1/4 - Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post

It’s a semi-profound if not exactly original concept, sometimes articulated in that hamfisted-yet-poetic way Costner’s worked since his still-greatest directorial statement, “Dances with Wolves.” It’s delivered best visually... 2/4 - Bob Strauss, San Francisco Chronicle

“Horizon,” so far, anyway, is more about a certain set of movie memories than a movie of its own. 2/4 - Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

Part of the pleasure of Horizon is the sheer, magisterial sweep of the thing – with mountains and buttes and mesas like these, who needs CG? But its texture lives in small, telling details. 4/5 - Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph (UK)

Costner boasts an instinctive understanding of the archetype and thus elevates the role and each line beyond the possibility of camp. 3/5 - Kevin Maher, Times (UK)

The film’s impressive sense of scale and majesty is amplified by the swirling John Debney musical score. It’s just a pity that the exposition is so clunky and so slow on the draw. 2/5 - Geoffrey Macnab, Independent (UK)

Costner’s real reverence for the classic western dances with disaster by passing off the first of his four-part saga as epic filmmaking instead of a trio of speechifying, clumsily linked one-hour episodes that play like a TV series with no direction home. - Peter Travers, ABC News

Nobody has done more to keep the western flame kindling on the big screen than Kevin Costner, but the audacity of his latest rodeo feels like overreach, if not outright folly. - Brian Lowry, CNN.com

But a film – certainly a Western – needs to have a plot, a bit of credible characterisation, and a structure that preferably includes a beginning, middle and end. Horizon doesn't have any of those. 1/5 - Nicholas Barber, BBC.com

I’m just not sure how much of a buy-in audiences will feel when this movie wraps up, even if the final five minutes is a ludicrous montage of “scenes to come.” C - Jordan Hoffman, Entertainment Weekly

At least Horizon accomplishes one staggering feat: it makes one wonder if we were maybe a little too hard on The Postman. - Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

The first part of a planned four-part epic saga strives for a lot, but serves more to remind us of the best of the genre without achieving it itself. - Stephanie Zacharek, TIME Magazine

It's fine for an epic to sprawl, but you want a sense of purpose at the same time, and this one sometimes loses its way. Still, it’s handsomely shot and well performed, a throwback to the glory days of event-movie horse operas. 3/5 - Helen O'Hara, Empire Magazine

It has the cinematography you’d expect of a Western, as well as the vast landscapes and the emphatic, sweeping music... What it doesn’t have is anything original to say if, that is, it has anything to say at all. - Deborah Ross, The Spectator

So expansive and incomplete that it resembles a modern television series awkwardly edited into feature form. - Nick Schager, The Daily Beast

The biggest problem with Horizon is that, even with its lengthy running time, Costner has only scratched the surface of the “saga” he’s trying to tell. There is no arc to what happens, just the seemingly unending introduction of characters. - Esther Zuckerman, The Daily Beast

These aren’t characters so much as the spokes of a plot in human form, each of their storylines moving as if being pulled by horses across the entire span of the American West. C- - Ryan Lattanzio, indieWire

The film is all table-setting, with the stories lacking in polish and dramatic momentum and the characters never developed beyond archetypes. 1/4 - Derek Smith, Slant Magazine

The biggest issue with this film is that in its rush to tell all these stories, it doesn’t have time for the kinds of nuanced moments that make characters feel alive and real. - Liz Shannon Miller, Consequence

The often bewildering and somewhat underwhelming first installment of Kevin Costner's Western epic is long on characters but short on story. 2/4 - Oliver Jones, Observer

Retroactively treating the frontier as the direction in which we were always headed is a slick way to absolve individual settlers of making the decision – then and now – to benefit from genocide. - Radheyan Simonpillai, Zoomer

While the first film in the possible “Horizon” series does well in setting up future pictures, this single film is a chore to sit through. 2/4 - Robert Daniels, RogerEbert.com

A visually impressive endeavour that sets the stage for a larger journey. While it struggles with pacing and narrative cohesion, it manages to hold promise for future instalments to build upon. Impressive stuff, but a little too schmaltzy in places. 3/5 - Linda Marric, HeyUGuys

SYNOPSIS:

In the great tradition of Warner Bros. Pictures’ iconic Westerns, “Horizon: An American Saga” explores the lure of the Old West and how it was won—and lost—through the blood, sweat and tears of many. Spanning the four years of the Civil War, from 1861 to 1865, Costner’s ambitious cinematic adventure will take audiences on an emotional journey across a country at war with itself, experienced through the lens of families, friends and foes all attempting to discover what it truly means to be the United States of America.

CAST:

• Kevin Costner as Hayes Ellison

• Sienna Miller as Frances Kittredge

• Sam Worthington as First Lt. Trent Gephardt

• Will Patton as Owen Kittredge

• Jamie Campbell Bower as Caleb Sykes

• Giovanni Ribisi as Bailey Pickering

DIRECTED BY: Kevin Costner

STORY BY: Jon Baird, Kevin Costner, Mark Kasdan

SCREENPLAY BY: Jon Baird, Kevin Costner

PRODUCED BY: Kevin Costner, Howard Kaplan, Mark Gillard

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Robert J. Scannell, Danny Peykoff, Marc DeBevoise, Armyan Bernstein, Rod Lake, Charlie Lyons, Barry M. Berg

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: J. Michael Muro

PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Derek R. Hill

EDITED BY: Miklos Wright

COSTUME DESIGNER: Lisa Lovaas

MUSIC BY: John Debney

RUNTIME: 181 Minutes

RELEASE DATE: June 28, 2024

This movie fucking rips. I don’t care what the reviews say, I don’t care what anyone wanting the full story says. This movie is good.

As Sean said there are like 4-5 all-timer scenes. I keep thinking back to the scene with Costner walking up the hill with the brother who’s planning to kill him and everyone in the house when they get to the top. The tension in that scene, the cinematography—that’s cinema.

I personally can’t wait to watch each coming chapter as they’re released. Someone on another pod said this is like reading 50 pages into a 200 page novel. And, I agree. And I think that’s awesome. I like reading books. I like a long story when it’s told well. I am invested in all the stories in Horizon and look forward to seeing them play out over the course of the series.

Guys, this movie is just epic shit.

The critics says it is really bad. I was expecting to see it since it was announced? What the true fans of the genre really thinks of it?

I am hopping to see it on the weekend. I dont mind the 3h, in fact, for me its a good thing

How would you rate this? Did you like or dislike it?

Ok.. so I rented this last night.. took me two nights to watch.

I don't get it. It was almost kinda ok/good but what was with the end? It's like they ran out of time and the last 5-10 minutes just squeezed in what should have been in part 2 ? Also the jumping around was pretty bad. How on earth could this be put together/edited the way it was.

I just don't understand how they could edit it together like they did and watch it.. and feel like it was ok.. and release it like that. Makes no sense. I'm a dental technician and could see this.. how on earth could Kevin Costner not.

Ok .. rant over.

https://variety.com/2024/film/reviews/horizon-an-american-saga-chapter-2-review-kevin-costner-1236121960/

https://screenrant.com/horizon-2-movie-review/

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/horizon-an-american-saga-chapter-2-review-kevin-costner-1235993863/

https://www.thewrap.com/horizon-2-review-kevin-costner-american-saga/

Overall consensus seems to be that while a bit better than Chapter 1, it does share a lot of issues with it and will hardly convert anyone that didn't already like that one.

A bit disappointing, but I'm personally still looking forward to it dropping (and not just in streaming, but in theaters).

It seems to conclude with a montage for Chapter 3, so lets see if Costner can hold to that promise.

I know critics are not that much into it, but all the descriptions actually make it looks good to me?
Being very character focused, lot's of differents points of views, Bilge says it looks great.
Dunno man. Kev knows his shit.

Apparently I’m like the only person who loved this movie. I watched it a few minutes ago, and I really enjoyed it. I know I really loved a movie, when it ends and I want to immediately watch more of it. I even loved the sort of trailer type thing they did at the end. The way they’ve introduced us to all of these characters, is very compelling to me.

I liked how they opened the movies and then jumped forward five years, and then told us through other ways that they were indeed in the same settlement as the surveyors at the start of the movie.

I loved the caravan that was being led Luke Wilson’s character, and dynamics that were covered there.

I loved Kevin Costners character, the little we find out about him. Perhaps, if there was one aspect I’d have liked to seen more of it wod have been more Kevin Costner. I can’t think of one aspect that I didn’t enjoy.

The only thing I’ll say, is I kind of wish Kevin Costner made a series, instead of a movie, so we can be guaranteed to see all of it. I’m worried we aren’t going to be able to see the last two chapters, and I think he probably could have gotten a TV series done.

Anyway, I am hoping to find some like minded people who also enjoyed the movie. The last thing I’ll say is, I miss this style of movie. It kind of reminded me of the eighties and nineties style movies. I haven’t seen a movie in a long time that I enjoyed so much. I did not expect that coming in, given what I had heard about the movie from critics. I was very pleasantly surprised. Here is hoping they are able to get the funding together for a third and fourth chapter.

My post last Saturday (February 1st) was widely discussed. I didn’t expect to see it blow up the way it did but it was nice to see my post on here get the traction it did.

It took me much longer to finish the film and here are my thoughts.

I understand why some people hate this film. It’s very jumbled. The pacing is all over the place and I was left wondering where the story was going far too often.

The best parts of the film happen in the first hour of the film in my opinion, before Costner even shows up in the film. The best part of the film for myself was when the town was attacked by the Apache and how terrifying that was portrayed.

When you get to Costner’s character you finally get a sense that this is the main star of the film but it never really amounts to that. I was happy to see him finally put that guy out, he was annoying from the moment he entered the movie.

And a lot of people commented on the end montage and I agree, it doesn’t really make sense. I’ve never seen a film do that before.

Overall, this wasn’t the worse film I’ve ever seen. I probably won’t take the 3 hours it takes to watch it again but it is a fairly good film in my eyes. 7/10. Hopefully Part 2 is much much better and lives up to the hype that this film had but didn’t reach.