Taglines: We are all hostiles.
In 1892, Wesley Quaid and his family are attacked by a Comanche war party who proceed to kill and scalp him and kill his three children, but his wife Rosalie manages to escape capture, hiding in a thicket. In Fort Berringer, New Mexico, Captain Joseph Blocker rounds up an escaping Apache family and brings them to the fort.
He is then called to the office of Colonel Abraham Biggs, who informs him of his final orders before retirement, direct from the President: escort dying Cheyenne war chief, Yellow Hawk, and his family back to their tribal lands in Montana. He reluctantly accepts, facing a court-martial if he doesn’t, despite his history with the chief, including the murders of several friends. He chooses a detail to accompany him: Private “Frenchie” DeJardin, the youngest; Lieutenant Kidder, fresh from West Point; and old friend 1st Sergeant Metz and Corporal Woodson, a Buffalo Soldier.
They begin their journey, but diverge from their path to investigate the charred Quaid house. Inside they find the emotionally scarred Rosalie, who, though initially hostile towards the Cheyenne family because of the previous attack, agrees to sleep in their camp after coaxing from Blocker. She buries her family the next day, and accompanies Blocker and his detail on their journey.
They are soon ambushed by the Comanche party, who kill Frenchie and critically wound Woodson, although he survives. After this event, Yellow Hawk convinces Blocker that it is in his best interest to unchain him and his family. The next day, the bodies of the surviving Comanche party, who had fled the day before, are discovered dead. Blocker deduces that Yellow Hawk and his son, Black Hawk, killed them.
After a brief stop in Colorado to drop off Woodson and Rosalie, Blocker is instructed to take disgraced Sgt. Charles Wills to be court martialed and hanged at a stop along the way to Montana. Joining Blocker’s company to oversee Wills’s hanging are Corporal Tommy Thomas and Sergeant Malloy. Meanwhile, Rosalie decides to continue on with Blocker, despite being offered a place to stay in Colorado until Christmas.
One night, the women are abducted by three fur traders as they wash dishes in the stream by their camp. The company, assisted by Yellow Hawk and Black Hawk, manage to track down the fur traders and slaughter them as they rescue the women, although Sergeant Malloy is killed. During a downpour, Wills manages to fool Kidder into sympathetically undoing his chains, only to kill him and escape the company. He is later tracked down and killed by 1st Sergeant Thomas Metz, who then takes his own life, succumbing to decades of PTSD.
Hostiles is a 2017 American Western film written and directed by Scott Cooper, based on a story by Donald E. Stewart. It stars Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi, Ben Foster, Stephen Lang, Jesse Plemons, Rory Cochrane, Adam Beach, Q’orianka Kilcher, and Timothée Chalamet. It follows a U.S. Cavalry officer who must escort a Cheyenne war chief and his family back to their home in Montana in 1892. The film had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival on September 2, 2017, and had a limited release in the United States by Entertainment Studios starting December 22, 2017, before going wide on January 26, 2018.
Hostiles (2018)
Directed by: Scott Cooper
Starring: Scott Shepherd, Rosamund Pike, Ava Cooper, Stella Cooper, David Midthunder, Christian Bale, Rory Cochrane, Jonathan Majors, John Benjamin Hickey, Stafford Douglas, Stephen Lang, Bill Camp
Screenplay by: Scott Cooper
Production Design by: Donald Graham Burt
Cinematography by: Masanobu Takayanagi
Film Editing by: Tom Cross
Costume Design by: Jenny Eagan
Set Decoration by: Edward McLoughlin
Art Direction by: Elliott Glick
Music by: Max Richter
MPAA Rating: R for strong violence, and language.
Distributed by: Entertainment Studios
Release Date: January 28, 2018
Visits: 123
