Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1: Kevin Costner’s Crazy Project (review)

A large fresco designed like a cinema monument, but which operates on alternating current: sometimes flamboyant, often heavy, still very long.

What is Kevin Costner in 2024? Everyone seems to agree: he’s the veteran of Dancing with the wolves, became a global superstar again with Yellowstone, a contemporary western series breaking all audience records that the actor allowed himself to leave at the height of his success. To do what ? Cinema, of course. And not just anyhow: by putting all his money on the table and producing his own great ultimate western fresco, Horizon. He is a real landowner – like his character Yellowstone, confident and straight in his boots- that Costner made four films (maybe five, or even six, while we’re at it) of three hours which revolve around a utopian town, somewhere on the border, at the time of the Civil War. with Indians, soldiers, settlers, bounty hunters, outlaws, entrepreneurs, everyone. This “chapter 1” is still heavy, very academic, crossed just as many great moments (the nocturnal attack on the village, the discussion between Costner and a outlaw along a slope, the shooting which follows) only swelling passages, even incomprehensible ellipses given the duration of the work. Yes, it’s like watching an entire season of a long-form TV series concentrated into three hours of film. We sense that the big subject, the mythological founding of America, simmers beneath the surface. But didn’t Costner make it appear in 1997 with Postmanhis ambitious post-apocalyptic fresco – already three hours long, already with Will Patton and Giovanni Ribisi, both back in Horizon– where he made the USA rise from the ashes of war? Experience it: once out ofHorizonfeel free to review Postman to wait until Chapter 2, scheduled for September 11.

By Kevin Costner. With Kevin Costner, Abbey Lee, Sienna Miller…Duration 3h01. Released July 3, 2024