
There is a lot to explain, but there is little worth talking about when it comes to Kevin Costner’s “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2” which consecrated many parts of his six narratives spanning Western. This part teases considering the disappointing premiere of Chapter 1 in Cannes and is shown out of the competition on the last day of Venice. The second chapter builds upon the sporadically impressive but structurally flawed first chapter and strives to attain its vision. The narrative is mind-boggling in its content, yet sounds even in its action it has many new and old characters yet only weak character development it seems and the film is over 3 hours long so the abrupt ending appears out of sync.
Well, that’s hardly a shock since it continues with what was previously displayed, which was basically the teaser trailer of the second part. Still, viewers bamboozled by the concluding shot of that sequence, a close-up of a mustachioed Giovanni Ribisi (who did not appear otherwise), will at least have that mystery somewhat resolved when “Chapter 2” begins this time, Chicago with Mr. Pickering played by Ribisi persuading a couple of local rubes to buy land as part of some con game, a technique similar to the ones used in all those posters inviting settlers to the supposed Horizon paradise. This all is narrated by Georgie (Aidan McCann), the little boy whose father was one of the investors, in a rather sweet full-bodied Scottish variation of Anna Paquin’s voice in “The Piano” and possessing dry wit so that it is a little pity we are never going to hear from the lad ever again. Instead, like almost everybody else apparently, we go west.
As per the previous occasion, the best executed two main storylines are the wagon-train plot of the story where Ella Hunt as Mrs. Proctor faces all the burdens and The further exploits of Frances portrayed by Sienna Miller who has a half-hearted love affair with Trent, a Union Army officer played by Sam Worthington, who leaves for a battle.
Both these narratives inform the reader of the hardships endured by women settlers in the pioneer West, such as the sexual enslavement by Mrs. Proctor after the death of her husband, and the others nodding their heads and disavowing any responsibility for what happened.
At the same time, Frances returns bitter from Trent’s absence, where she quips, “War is a good refuge for you men who don’t know your own cause yet.” Moving back into her burnt-out tyrannical shell in which she had lived her life with Elizabeth McPhail Georgia, her daughter, Frances intends to wait for her deceased husband’s brother who she was assumed to marry. When these strands finally connect, thanks to Will Patton’s gruff good-guy patriarch, and his willful tomboy daughter Diamond (Isabelle Fuhrman), the first glimpse of an overarching plan for the disturbing project that is the “Horizon” explains a lot that is indiscernible otherwise.
Everything else is a lot less disorganized. Costner’s own storyline, of the undertone suspense where his pragmatist gunslinger Hayes Ellison is in confrontation with the evil brothers chasing him, cannot compare to such levels of scrolling, especially as he has to be away from his prostitute loved one Abby Lee, who is mainly hiding under the wooden boards of the bar brothel for most of the picture.
It seems as if Costner and Jon Baird have a monopoly on characters craving to cater to more than one non-white ethnicity at a time, in this case, the Native American characters are hardly seen, and they instead donate their screentime to a cadre of immigrants that are led by Mr. Hong (Jim Lau), who moves in next to Frances, modifies a lumber mill, and builds a tea place.
Any movie will seem much more global on paper than what unfolds in the scenes. To be correct, it has its stirring, impressive, and articulating scenes of history such as wagon burning, a barn dance gun fight, or courtesy given particularly to J. Michael Muro’s marvelous cinematography, a great deal of beautiful monumental views of the wagon trains making their way across bright arid steppe lands or stages extending as we assume the settlement that will ultimately come to be called Horizon rising from the dust. But more often than not, the most telling episode of the movie is the vanquishing of plans that are meant in most exceptional circumstances to be outstanding but lose themselves along the lines of completely transformational gaps in pulses of emotion that leave one Katie Sherlock wondering how did we miss out on this.
The intense rhythm gets more impotent as we rush to the climax which switches without notice into a series of images of the coming release in the sequel which is also a montage without any dialogue.
The viewers would have benefitted more if they had started with a summary of the events of Chapter 1. In this case, Chapter 2 still features Costner as the most unbearable character who inquires about the film’s reliance on the audience’s ability to pay attention to details regarding the previous movie. The most diligent filmgoers, one who may have just finished the viewing of the first film, at times will have difficulties remembering what exact massacre of which members of the family are currently more visible or why relatives, who were with us at the time so close and now quite on the contrary, remain as so.
The issue of discouragement is slight because Cosnter’s expertise in instantaneously and shrewdly placing the American measure of swashbuckling gunplay along with old-school violence is not diminished when stepping back for a moment and evaluating his work from a wider angle. If you are not being dragged into another plot, you have not appreciated this incredibly intricate world in which everything, from the buttons on the coats and breeches to their costuming to the very designs standing for their class and personalities, is also characterized by a fittingly sad optimism about America’s frontier ideology. (Except for poor composer John Debney who might find it all quite miserable considering that he has written the score pins his hopes on the concept of ‘horse opera’ which will have elevation every five minutes).
There is no order among the scenes that contribute to the film as to the overall look like the film would not be “Horizon: An American Saga – Part 2”. Like a modular suite of furniture in which each section is perfectly designed but it is a building which is bungled to a point where it is hard to call the arrangement a sofa.
And by the sense of itching that the very same footage that was hastily re-edited for clarity could have been turned into three fully captivating hourlong episodes of the prestige television series that “Horizon” ought to have been.
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