Kevin Costner | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

In one of the most risky and ambitious movie productions of all time, the first of four movies about the American West during the time of the Civil War, “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1” has been released and unfortunately, the critical reviews of only 40% are correct.

This film reminded me of the game Whac-A-Mole, with new characters, storylines, and scenes out of nowhere popping in and out of this 3-hour movie, with no setup, explanation, and total disregard for the art of storytelling. What is going on now? Who is this person? Does anybody have a name? Is this new scene related to other parts of this story?

The weekend box office for the first installment of this Horizon series was a low 11 million dollars. One of the reasons for this low turnout is the poor critical reviews. The other reason is, that fewer people are willing to sit for 3 hours to see any kind of movie, much less one that is getting bad reviews. Regardless, there is no necessity for this first Horizon movie to be 3 hours and 1 minute long. With so many disconnected stories, one-third of them could have been cut. With the second installment coming out in August, the excess could have been moved to the next film.

The odds are extremely high that the second movie will probably have more or less the same reviews, although hopefully, the next film is not another 3 hours. Considering the huge investment involved with producing four films over two years, you have to wonder if they even bothered to have test audiences for the first movie, to get their opinions before taking such a huge risk and making more movies. I also wondered what the people in the audience of the Cannes Film Festival some weeks ago were thinking when they gave Costner an 11-minute standing ovation. This movie is nowhere near worthy of a standing ovation, much less one that is 11 minutes long.

Kevin Costner wrote the screenplay with 2 other screenwriters, which might partially explain the way too many disconnected stories and scenes. It’s almost as if none of the screenwriters bothered to collaborate with the other writers. There are about 10 different standalone sub-stories in this screenplay.

The good points about this film are the solid acting, and the well-shot vistas of the American West, with the underlying story about how extremely difficult it was to be alive in the United States during this period in history. Sienna Miller and Jena Malone are very good in their roles as long-suffering women living during this time. Kevin Costner plays the lead role of Hayes Ellison in this story, however, he does not make his first appearance until 1 hour into this movie – another decision that made no sense.

In my opinion, there have been 3 great Westerns in the last 30+ years. The best is Clint Eastwood’s “The Unforgiven”, released in 1992. Second is Costner’s “Dances with Wolves”, released in 1990, and “Open Range”, released in 2003. It is a shame, despite Costner’s extreme enthusiasm for this Horizon idea, which has been ongoing for over 30 years, that this first film of four was not written as well as his last two Westerns.

I agree with the low ratings of 40% for this film and cannot recommend it.

The new movie “Let Him Go” is the first movie released in theaters since the Pandemic that is high quality, and with the bankable stars: Diane Lane and Kevin Costner, with a great story and great cinematography – in this case, the barren vistas of North Dakota.

The story here is mostly believable, all the way up to the end, when there is an expected Hollywood climax. In real life, nobody would do what the characters do at the end of this movie. Within these two hours are scenes of domestic abuse, child abuse, massive injustice, a criminal family known as the “Weboys” and impressive scenes of conflict and tension performed at an extremely high level.

Margaret and George Blackledge live on a horse ranch in very rural North Dakota where life is cold, flat and at times very harsh. Ever since I saw the great movie “Fargo” in 1996 I have always wondered why anyone would want to live in cold, flat and sparsely populated places like North and South Dakota. At the start of this story Margaret and George are living with their son, his wife and their infant son and then, unfortunate events do occur that lead them into having to track down their grandson Their search leads them to meet a criminal family known as the Weboy’s in an even more rural area of North Dakota.

As the Blackledge’s try to visit with their grandson, a series of high stress events happen, starting with a dinner, where the Blackledge’s and Weboy’s meet for the first time – arguably the best acting in this film. A line is drawn where the Weboy’s make it very clear that they do not want the Blackledge’s to see their own grandson ever again.

The acting throughout this movie is outstanding, and the actress Leslie Manville is a standout with her role as Blanch Weboy, the patriarch of the Weboy family. Manville’s acting is so strong, she may just be nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actress, despite this depleated Pandemic movie year.

Many years ago I learned that one of the fine arts of screenwriting is the use of reflection to show something early in a story, that gets used again in a much more significant way later. This movie has an example of a reflection that starts with Margaret Blackledge whispering in an ear of a dying horse, and ends with one of the most powerful examples of refection that I have ever seen in a movie.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Let Him Go are only around 75%, but my rating is a solid 90% for the great story and acting. Movies like this one remind many of us that one of the reasons why we go to the movies is because very often a great injustice is revenged. Unfortunately real life far too often, does not work that way. I highly recommend this film.