It’s hard to come away from Horizon: Chapter 1 to feel that this universe is going to pay off in a way that makes the first entry worth it. It’s a beautifully rendered, pinpoint accurate Western with zero personality.
What Kevin Costner attempts with Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (and a potential three chapters to follow that seem less and less likely to come to fruition by the day) is an inverse of the typical formula currently dominated media markets, streaming services, and the box office. While major studios are trying to copy the traditional movie formula and stretch it into miniseries to fill content quotas, Kevin Costner is trying to squeeze traditional television fare into marketable movies.
And “squeeze” might be a misleading way to describe what the legendary director and quasi-lead star of this project is attempting because there isn’t much of an attempt to shave the edges with Horizon: Chapter 1 to fit your typical big screen genre fare. Digging in at slightly over 3 hours and pacing itself like a series guaranteed three seasons from the get-go, Chapter 1 aimlessly wanders for much of its runtime, to the point where these individual stories can almost be pieced together like a pastiche-heavy anthology film lacking the interconnected pieces to make it hum.
And I suppose there is some attempt to tie together the dozens of loose threads Costner is working with in Chapter 1, from remarkably tense battle sequences between Native Americans and settlers expanded further and further west to grounded familial stories centered on core “American” values, they don’t make for the sort of grand statement on the foundation of our country that Costner and company seem to think it will.
Which is why the biggest praises I can sing for Horizon: Chapter 1 is that the performances are usually rather good, and that Kevin Costner the director still seems to have many of the same techniques and talents that made his previous directorial efforts work.
The cast is overflowing with talented male character actors and commanding female screen presences. The likes of Michael Rooker, Sam Worthington, Luke Wilson, and Danny Huston continue to make the case that dudes absolutely rule, while Sienna Miller and Abbey Lee supply much of the emotional text needed to make this movie operate on even a semi-successful level.
But it’s ultimately rather hard to come away from Chapter 1 to feel that this Horizon universe is going to pay off in a way that makes the first entry worth it. It’s a beautifully rendered, pinpoint accurate Western with the personality of a glass of water. Watch Open Range instead, which capitalizes on much of what Chapter 1 misses.
Rating: 5/10
Watch Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (2024) on Max and VOD
Reviews for Western Movies like Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (2024)
