The Western has been overdue for a resurgence in the past two decades that never seems to come. “True Grit” grossed $250 million in 2010. “Django Unchained” grossed $426 million in 2012. “Deadwood” is one of the most acclaimed television shows in history. “Yellowstone” and its spin-offs are extremely successful, and 2018’s “Red Dead Redemption 2” remains one of the most successful video games of all time with a gross revenue of $1.38 billion and 23 million copies sold. Additionally, conservative artist George Alexopoulos self-fundraised nearly $348,000 for his new graphic novel, Ghost of the Badlands.
Yet the resurgence never seems to come. Western films mostly remain a curiosity for auteur directors like the Coen brothers, Martin Scorsese, and Jane Campion, when it isn’t restrained to Turner Classic Movies reruns.
The notable exception to this is Kevin Costner, whose passion for the genre has led the man to take wild risks in self-financing his own Westerns. In 1990, he self-funded $3 million toward the budget of “Dances with Wolves” and walked away with blockbuster success. Costner did this again for 2003’s “Open Range,” though to less critical acclaim.
Now Costner has gambled his financial security on the largest risk of his career, putting $38 million of his own money into producing a four-part, 12-hour epic, “Horizon: An American Saga.” It is an ambitious project that he’s been trying to direct and produce for decades, but risk-averse studios were too afraid to touch it. In his own words, he’s “terribly satisfied in my own life that God allowed me to get these first two done.”
Unfortunately, “Horizon: Part 1” has taken a walloping in the press. It’s been critically panned as a tedious, punishing, disjointed mess. It’s been called “offensive,” with the Daily Beast dismissing it as a “misogynistic, racist, retrograde mess.” The press has also seen fit to portray Costner as dealing with a frantic behind-the-scenes crisis, at the very least saying he is “going to lose a lot of money.”
In its first week, the film grossed $14.3 million at the box office and needs to gross $63 million to break even. Fortunately, this first chapter has a 71 percent audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is quite fascinating despite its flaws.
As many have complained, “Horizon” is a film that feels like a pilot for a television show. It spins six separate stories in its first three hours and leaves all of them hanging by the end, likely leaving them to intermingle and collide by the end of the second part. It definitely leaves the audience grasping for something solid, but when it finds its footing, it goes for a wild ride.
The main character is the setting — Horizon Valley — which becomes a microcosm for the entire history of the West; poor whites being sold a poor bill of goods with the hope of opportunity, natives being displaced and seeking vengeance, governments retaliating brutally, innocents being slaughtered, lawless feuds breaking out, with murderers and prostitutes being left to pick up the mess and find some semblance of justice, etc.
After a prologue showing the first three new inhabitants of the valley meeting a poor end against the local Apache tribe, the film slowly begins to unfurl its massive story. Its pacing is deliberate, and it’s nearly half an hour into the film before an inviting incident moves the plot. Thankfully, the film is a good start to a story that could become something remarkable.
What we do get is a classic story of nobody being guilty but everyone being responsible. As Danny Huston’s character exposits, what is happening in the West is more than just manifest destiny. There are simply too many interests at play to stop fate. The wheel of history is turning in the background as 1,000 people’s lives are affected by it and there’s no way to stop it. This leaves all the small figures of history scrambling to survive on a chaotic frontier.
Much remains to be seen in how this will play out, but the first chapter already approaches the topic with nuance. Natives are given complex motives and internal dissent between peaceful and violent factions. Europeans and Americans are portrayed as both innocent peasants seeking hope and brutal monsters that scalp innocents and murder women. There’s no racial moral binary inherent in these characters.
The closest thing the movie has to statements on contemporary social issues are scenes of its prostitute lead character calling out the “proper” women of her town’s hypocrisy and a British woman insulting American girls for being too tomboyish. The film otherwise portrays race and sex quite gently, showing men and women with assigned roles in a dangerous society, and even showing black families living harmoniously alongside white families.
There’s no one reason why “Horizon” isn’t doing well at the box office. It could be that Costner’s “Yellowstone” fans aren’t interested in the movie, theaters are too expensive right now, or conservatives are still mad at Costner for his support of Liz Cheney. It also remains to be seen how this will affect the third and fourth chapters, which reportedly started filming in May.
It’s always possible that good ol’ word of mouth or licensing deals could fix some of the film’s financial woes. How the project will unfold in the next chapter remains to be seen.
