3:10 To Hostile Territory.
135 Mins. Starring: Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi, Jesse Plemons, Rory Cochrane, Timothee Chalamet, Jonathan Majors, Adam Beach, Q'orianker Kilcher, Paul Anderson, Bill Camp, Stephen Lang, Ryan Bingham & Ben Foster. Director: Scott Cooper.
Truer grit has barely been ground through tobacco spitting teeth. Now you'd be 'Unforgiven' for thinking they don't make good, bad and ugly westerns like Clint Eastwood used to anymore. Because for all your Rio's and 'Magnificent Seven's' there is still a fistful of modern day more. And we aren't talking about the neo genre of todays classics like 'No Country For Old Men', 'Cold In July', 'Hell Or High Water' and dare we say it even the latest Hugh Jackman, Wolverine 'Logan' movie. Did we forget the Cohen's even greater remake of John Wayne's 'True Grit' now? Take 'Tombstone' Kurt Russell's ultraviolent 'Bone Tomahawk' for ball breaking example. Perhaps one of the genres greatest now or then. How about old man Tommy Lee Jones starred and directed 'The Homesman' that really brings it all back to your front door? Or even Fassbender's 'Slow West' wild ride with a fellow Nightcrawling X-Men. Even the 'Dark Knight' himself Christian Bale, despite all the billions Batman's Bruce Wayne brought is no stranger to the spurs in dust genre. Remaking the classic '3:10 To Yuma' into another one as he tried to get a murderous Russell Crowe on a last train deadlier than the Orient Express. But now reuniting with his 'Out Of The Furnace' director Scott Cooper (who gave us the acoustic, cowboy, 'Crazy Heart' of Jeff Bridges and the modern wild west of Johnny Depp's 'Black Mass' gangster) and going straight into the fire of racial and land ownership politics still rife and rampant today like wildfire, Bale drops a haymaker for not only his best western, but all round movie yet. 'American Psycho', 'The Machinist', or last years utterly criminally underrated 'The Promise' with 'Doctor Zhivago' prescribed love triangle, Oscar Isaac and Charlotte La Bon. Keeping the memory of the Armenian genocide and those of their people that survived, alive. And now as Christian's faithful general in Costner costume dances with all sorts of wolves, the oldest American genre in movie making history is drawn to a 'Hostiles' takeover.
Bale brings forth a formidable Captain character based on late 'Missing' and Tom Clancy 'Jack Ryan' series screenwriter Donald E. Stewart's unpublished, maverick manuscript. Directed straight arrow perfectly by old 'Furnace' friend Cooper, Christian's character plays not only reluctant hero, but reluctant retiree seemingly unwilling to learn from everyones previous mistakes, aswell his own, or this late in life. Especially with one last job no man in his position wants to do. Especially even one so war raw fuelled with flammable hatred, captured behind the trademark long beard of Bale's hidden mouth and strained veins of a road weary warrior with at least one or two good fights left in him. In the name of the law, but not the lord he still somehow flickers belief in, although he'd rather flick through Caesar than the Bible, Bale's born soldier is old testament slaughtering Native American's he like so many others at the time call savages, all on their own land. So you can imagine his reservation in being detailed with transporting one across the plains. Especially one who personally is his sworn enemy, responsible for as cutting as many heads (and ingloriously like a bastard, scalps) as he is...but one who has taken the hearts of men he calls friend...if not family. Bale at his brutally bold and at times blisteringly beautiful best gives this all the grit and spit he's got, no polish. The only sheen that resides here is beyond the pride of his uniforms badge, but down to the corrupted core of a man that has a lot more heart than his soulless killing suggests. A leather and chaps cauldron of repressed anger and restrained goodness simmering, the passion of Christian lip bit and lump throated is so powerfully pure. All the way down to the silent screams and the tears that come spilling out from every place a leak can spring, that this is his most puncuated project yet. Forget the words he doesn't say, but when he's wise or comforting to it boy do they count. Like '3:10' what you read on this mans face when it barely even looks like he's registering an emotion tells so much more, giving light of day to finishing E. Stewart's stellar, moving manuscript. They say the eyes are the soul and as you see Christian Bale's through his piercing ones you can barely look away.
On the road he picks up 'Gone Girl' Rosamund Pike. And she really is this time, having just witnessed her whole family slaughtered by real savages burning her house to the ground in the first five minutes of this movie that will leave you 'Tomahawk' shell shocked and raw for revenge. Widowed, homeless and childless, Pike left still holding her baby amongst the charred wall remains of her home brings real post traumatic pain to the forefront of her tour de force performance. Christian is movingly sympathetic and kind to her, opening up a well of grace and humility thought forgotten amongst all the discriminate evil, but Rosamund's Rosalie is the real revelation. Showing all emotion from the sleeve to her bleeding, broken heart in the ground, pleading to our every sense of humanity. One scene shovel struggling to bury her entire family alone won't just leave you in tears, but with both your mouth and your guard down. There's no physical look to describe this type of pain, until Pike spikes us with it and leaves it eating at us inside. If Christian doesn't make it to the Academy, at least give Rosamund a nomination in a late run worthy for the Oscars like 'All The Money In The World', 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri' and Speilberg, Streep and Hanks' 'The Post'. As a matter of fact Cooper's whole cast is ready for acclaim. Just like the welcome return of 'Last Of The Mohicans', 'Dances With Wolves' and 'Heat' legend Wes Studi, a study of measured brilliance and soulful greatness. Flanked by his family of ever underrated 'Cowboys and Aliens' and 'Suicide Squad' star Adam Beach who first made his name bringing power to his people in 'Flags For Our Fathers' and 'New World's' Pocahontas' Q'orianker Kilcher as a powerful Elk woman. Bale's boys helping him on the trails transportaion (Cooper's 'Black Mass' character actor, Jesse Plemons, bearded 'Argo' actor Rory Cochrane, 'Interstellar' ready for Oscar to 'Call Me By Your Name', Timothee Chalamet, star of this instant Jonathan Majors, 'Peaky Blinders' and 'Sherlock Holmes-A Game Of Shadows' gun for hire Paul Anderson and even singer/songwriter Ryan Bingham giving us a 'Rio Brave' like campire song break), are all nothing short of absolutely brilliant in what they say and on their conflicted faces don't speak. Even familiar face veterans like Bale's 'Public Enemies' co-star and 'Avatar' star Stephen Lang and 'Lawless' character actor Bill Camp (even better here than how good he is at the table of 'Molly's Game' right now) set up shop in cameo form. And as if that wasn't enough, come 'Hell Or High Water', 'Yuma' co-star Ben Foster shows up halfway through to add another outlaw wildcard to this territory traversing mix as maddingley brilliant as Ben always is. But as grandiose and great as this indie film looks, from the Hollywood who's who cast to the cinematic canvas of this great American land as timeless as the gunfights here that feel as vintage as they do modern day set-piece made and orchestrated, there's a moral message here that shoots right for your direct center. One that proves to us no matter our race, creed or social stature we all lay claim to this land one day we'll all belong under. So simply we better get along whilst the gettings still good before we all get got. Because behind every colour of skin and shade of eyes is a yearning soul and heart that beats the same. And this has so much of both in equal moving measure. The race for the best film of the year has already begun out the gates of 2018. With, without flaw one of the greatest westerns of our time. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Further Filming: '3:10 To Yuma', 'The Homesman', 'Bone Tomahawk'.
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