Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 review: Bloated, cumbersome passion project belongs on the small screen
In cinemas; Cert 15A
Kevin Costner’s awkward, old-fashioned western takes an awful long time to do not very much. Photo: Doug Peters/PA
They don’t make them like this anymore. There is, perhaps, a reason for that and Kevin Costner’s awkward, old-fashioned western takes an awful long time to do very little.
Squint hard enough and you can just about make out the seeds of a plot. Something to do with a white pioneer settlement in the Old West; a widowed mother (Sienna Miller) and a handsome soldier (Sam Worthington) and a gruff horse trader (a moustachioed Costner) with a swift hand and a secret past.
Elsewhere, Luke Wilson leads a wagon train through Kansas and a couple of violent brothers try to track down their killer sister. Baffling stuff, and this bloated, mismanaged passion project has no real shape and no clear structure.
Director, producer, co-writer and occasional leading man, Costner looks to have designed a costly mini-series for the big screen – thrilling in some places, confounding in most.
His film is 181 minutes of set-up, and it ends with a puzzling preview of the sequel, due in August. We appreciate the sincerity and, indeed, the sentiment, but this cumbersome epic belongs on the telly.
Two stars
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