Western film archetypes occupy ruthless yet elegant 'Hostiles'

<h3 class="briefHead">"Hostiles" - ★ ★ ½</h3>

Scott Cooper's gorgeously photographed, leisurely paced violent Western "Hostiles" begins as a ruthless, 1892 Sam Peckinpah survival tale, segues into a strained Hallmark card for peace and understanding, then finishes with an overly long, contemplative scene that offers little to actually think about.

"Hostiles" starts with one of the stupidest, if not THE stupidest pioneer in the Wild West facing off with Comanche warriors attacking his prairie home. Does the settler take cover inside his log cabin and use his rifle to pick off the attackers?

Nope. He runs out into the exposed open, firing wildly and blindly in their general direction.

The Comanches easily dispatch the pioneer, then kill his two fleeing daughters. His wife Rosalie (Rosamund Pike) barely escapes, not yet aware that her quiet baby has taken the bullet that surely would have killed her.

Rosalie is later found in shock at her burned-out cabin by legendary Indian fighter Captain Joseph Blocker (Christian Bale). The Shakespeare-reading (in Latin, no less) soldier sees her while on a reluctant mission to return dying U.S. Army prisoner Chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) from an Arizona fort to his Montana home.

Blocker hates the Cheyenne chief for brutally killing his friends with a knife, but both men share more than enough savage acts between them.

Sudden, brutal death looms over every scene of "Hostiles" as Blocker leads his conveniently diverse squad through Colorado where he picks up a murderous soldier (a typecast Ben Foster) he must take to be hanged. No good can come from this.

"Hostiles" perhaps suffers from having the same person serve as director and writer, reducing the narrative checks and balances. Cooper, operating off the late Donald Stewart's manuscript, reworks one-dimensional Western archetypes, including Bale's complex but standard-issue man of bitter steel and discipline, plus Studi's enlightened Native American of quiet wisdom and practicality.

Pike dominates Cooper's draggy, elegant movie with a brutal performance so raw and real it sears the heart.

Her slow awareness that her baby is dead prompts a reaction of such unbridled grief and sorrow, it ranks second only to Meryl Streep being forced to make her "Sophie's Choice."

<b>Starring:</b> Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi, Jesse Plemons, Adam Beach

<b>Directed by:</b> Scott Cooper

<b>Other:</b> An Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures release. Rated R for language, violence. 135 minutes