Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter One: How the West was incomplete

July 1, 2024 · Watch the trailer

It’s nearly impossible to say if Kevin Costner’s three-hour western epic is worth seeing in theaters because audiences will have to wait another six weeks to get into what feels like the second act of his story in spite of the immense run time.

A lot of plot takes place over the course of 181 minutes in “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter One,” but at the same time, almost nothing of consequence happens.

It’s a languishing film and first in a planned series of four installments that revels in nostalgia and yet somehow meanders aimlessly through the wilderness for a good chunk of its running time.

In spite of terrific cinematography, the film’s wonky narrative structure will leave less engaged audiences jarringly thrown off at various points as Costner freewheels his way through multiple, disjointed storylines that appear to possibly connect in a future installment in the series thanks to an awkwardly placed teaser reel in the film’s final moments before the end credits giving small snippets out of context of what’s to come.

In a general sense, “Horizon” is a classic drama about the expansion into western territory of the United States during the 1860s-1870s where settlers gamble their livelihoods and often their lives for a chance at a better tomorrow in the American frontier only to be violently confronted by Apaches numerous times.

The three major segments of “Horizon” which disjointedly overlap follow a woman and daughter alone after their town is attacked, a rustler rescuing a woman and child from a band of outlaws, as well as a wagon caravan heading towards the promise of a new land.

While Costner is the centrifugal force that keeps this entire project afloat as writer, director, star, and primary financier – Costner has reportedly spent $38 million himself on the film – he doesn’t appear in “Horizon” until the film’s second hour as audiences bound around the world in sort of a meandering prologue filled with indiscriminate violence and picturesque landscapes.

When he does arrive on screen, Costner is less his “Yellowstone” character John Dutton in the Old West and more a modern twist on the vintage “Man with No Name” character made famous by Clint Eastwood, an auteur actor/director that Costner clearly looks up to in the making of this film.

He tries hard to blend in a bit with the rest of the solid ensemble cast, but the imbalance of his star power makes it feel that segments without his Hayes are less important in the long run of the “Horizon” narrative, especially given that the weight of the other two segments of the film are placed on the shoulders of a more subdued Sienna Miller and an out-of-place Luke Wilson.

Miller is good despite being majorly overshadowed by a major action sequence shot entirely at night that disorients the audience in the panic of an Apache attack, and by the time Miller is able to establish her character, Costner has swiftly and broadly painted her into a corner with a romantic relationship with an Army captain.

Wilson, on the other hand, is given a wide berth as the leader of a wagon train heading towards Horizon, although for as much time as this segment of the film is given, the least actually happens and feels like yet another prologue in a movie with too much aimless exposition.

There are numerous sequences throughout “Horizon” that will keep audiences engaged in spite of these lulls, most notably the night raid in the film’s outset, a harrowing conversation between Hayes and a potential assassin on a hill, and a showdown in a trader shop that puts a young boy behind the trigger and face to face with an Apache.

The technical aspects of “Horizon” are solid and yet often feel less cinematic than they should, perhaps due to the decision to shoot a classic western tale on digital rather than traditional film. This in part, along with the narrative structure, makes the entire endeavor feel more like the long beginning to a television miniseries rather than the grandiose movie drama that Costner has clearly envisioned in his head for decades.

Yet, deciding whether or not to see “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter One” on the big screen is difficult to say without getting a clearer picture of where Costner’s upstart franchise is headed and many cinephiles might be better off waiting until August 16 when the second installment is slated for release to see the larger world unfold properly.