Movies

Peter Suderman | 6.28.2024 11:30 AM

I am a long-time admirer of Kevin Costner.

As an actor, he's been a sturdy big-screen presence for four decades, and his small-screen turn as a gruff, tough family patriarch in Yellowstone is a big part of what has made that show so successful over the last five years. Costner's work behind the camera, meanwhile, has never been short of interesting. Whatever its contemporary reputation, Dances With Wolves remains a powerfully made Hollywood epic. Costner's much-maligned adaptation of The Postman is a mess, but it's a fascinating curiosity, an ambitious and personal undertaking from a filmmaker determined to take big swings on the big screen.

So it is with great regret that I say that Costner's latest film, Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 1, is very nearly unwatchable. I say "very nearly" because I did, in fact, watch it. Somehow. Barely. And I am here to warn you away.

You should not subject yourself to this movie. Not even if you love westerns. Not even if you adore Costner. Not even if Dances With Wolves is your all-time favorite movie. Not even if you have binge-watched all five seasons of Yellowstone a half-dozen times. Costner's plodding three-hour prologue is interminable, unsalvageable, and flat-out impossible to care about. Rarely has........

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