Believe me, I wanted Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 to be good.  In recent years, I have come around to liking Dances with Wolves (1990), though it is of comparable lengths to Kevin Costner’s most recent turn at directing a Western.  Indeed, I used to think Dances with Wolves was eight hours long.  I used to put it on late at night while grading papers, and I began to appreciate it more.  As such, and given the fact that I am working on being more Christ-like in being charitable in my reviews, I was really hoping that Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 would prove palatable from the start.  The trailers did not seem promising, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt with Costner’s reputation as a filmmaker.  The same can be said for early critical responses to it.  Therefore, what will follow is going to be different from what I normally do, which should speak to one of the movie’s problems.  It is not so much an issue of disliking many of the characters, though they are undeveloped.  A major source of my frustration is that you have roughly three or four movies going on at the same time.  This means I am going to have to describe them all to you.  God be with me as I write this, and you as you read it.

If there is one thing that can be said to connect the disparate aspects of Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, it is the settlement that lends its name to the film.  The first time we see it is 1859 as surveyors come to San Pedro Valley, a parcel of land between two mountain ranges with a river running through it.  These newcomers are promptly massacred by Apache who live in the area.  Next comes a man.  Do not ask me who he is, precisely, but I think he is a Catholic missionary.  This makes a little sense, and this Catholic reviewer got a little excited when he stops for a moment at an abandoned mission, and I noticed he had a Rosary.  He then comes across the bodies of the surveyors and buries them.  This is the last we see of this person for the rest of the film.  A few years later, the first group of settlers arrive.  They are having a dance of which those same Apache do not approve.  I am sure it has more to do with the presence of the whites than the music.  Anyway, the Apache attack, burning down most of the temporary structures and killing many of these new arrivals.  Among the survivors are Frances Kittredge (Sienna Miller) and her daughter, Elizabeth Kittredge (Georgia MacPhail).  The rest of their family perished in the raid, and they are dug out of the escape tunnel in which they took shelter by Lieutenant Trent Gephardt’s (Sam Worthington) men.  Elizabeth and Frances are taken to the army base at which the cavalry is stationed.  From there, they try to move on with their lives, with a romance eventually developing between Frances and Lieutenant Gephardt.

Honestly, that is all that needs to be said about that section of Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1.  We will call that movie A.  From it springs movie B.  This involves a group of settlers from the newly destroyed Horizon going after the Apache responsible for the death and destruction.  I will also include a sub-movie B in here focusing on the Apache themselves.  After returning from their triumph, the one in charge of the attackers, Pionsenay (Owen Crowshoe), faces scrutiny from Apache elders.  The main chief does not favor continued provocation of the settlers, wanting to remain hidden as they are in the mountains.  Pionsenay disagrees, taking those who wish to carry on fight with him.  This does not matter much to the men from Horizon as they never encounter Pionsenay’s band.  They do find a different group of native peoples to slaughter, doing so ruthlessly and selling the scalps towards the end of the movie.

Movie C in Horizon: An American Saga has almost nothing to do with anything I have described to this point.  Indeed, the first clue to its existence comes in an uncontextualized interlude in the action just discussed.  It is set initially far to the north in Montana.  Lucy Harvey (Jena Malone) pulls a shotgun and unloads on James Sykes (Charles Harford).  He is her . . . husband?  Father?  Boyfriend?  He is somebody, anyway, and she takes her child and escapes into the wilderness.  Eventually, somehow, she ends up in Wyoming at a mining camp.  She now goes by the name Ellen, and lives with another woman named Marigold (Abbey Lee).  The latter is obviously a prostitute, though so was Mary Magdalene, so let us not be harsh.  At any rate, the Sykes family have gone looking for Lucy, and have managed to track her to this remote outpost.  They lure her in when her new man proceeds to what he thinks is a land transaction, but turns out to be a trap set up by James’ eldest son, Junior Sykes (Jon Beavers).  His younger brother, Caleb Sykes (Jamie Campbell Bower), goes to Lucy’s cabin to retrieve the child.  Standing in his way is Hayes Ellison (Kevin Costner), who is passing through trading horses.  He has been invited for an evening with Marigold.  Seeing their predicament, he takes pity on Marigold, killing Caleb, and taking off with the woman and Lucy’s toddler.  Do not ask what happens to Lucy after this because we never see her again.  As for our trio, they travel to yet another mining camp.  Despite all Hayes has done for her, she decides to take off with another gentleman, leaving the young one in the care of Chinese miners.  As for Hayes, seeing as the “Dear John” note he is left with is written on a flyer for Horizon, I guess this where he heads.

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 has a movie D, though it is the shortest of them.  It involves a wagon train on the Santa Fe trail being led by its “captain,” Matthew Van Weyden (Luke Wilson).  I think they are on their way to Horizon, though this is not entirely clear.  Their main concern for the moment is having enough water, and preserving the good name of a female English settler who decided to bathe with some of their precious supply of water.  These actions are unnecessarily shown, and observed by a pair of ruffians in their company with which Matthew is forced to have words.  And that is about it. . . .

Before Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 ends, there is a hint of a movie E, with a printer named Pickering (Giovanni Ribisi) being the one producing the pamphlets for the settlement of doom.  Thankfully, this is only one shot before it shifts into showing a collection of snippets from what I presume will be the second installment of this film.  After all, it stands to reason that if there is a first chapter, there is likely to be a second.  And there is, of course, set to premier August 16^th.  Until then, in as Christian a manner as I can intend, the main question I want to know is: what the heck happened?!  I have a theory based on what little research I did on the making of the movie.  Apparently, Costner wanted to put out four films, which should not be surprising with what I have written thus far.  Instead, I am guessing the studios said no and told him to cram them into two.  As such, there is little development as it flits around to the four stories I have discussed, doing so seemingly at random.  I so wanted to remain patient.  It is a virtue, as the Faith teaches.  Had it spent some time setting everything up, it would have worked better.  As a Catholic, I would have liked to have seen more of the early stuff.  How did that mission church get there, what were the missionaries’ interactions with the Apache like, and why was it abandoned?  This might help better contextualize why the Apache would resort to wanton slaughter rather than relying on what essentially amounts to stereotypes held by the audience to know that native peoples and whites do not like one another.  In reality, and as a historian who wrote about Spanish missions in the Americas, I can tell you the situation was more complex.

Another bit that would have added more complexity (in a good way) to Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is a greater inclusion of Christianity.  This is a common failing of many period pieces.  They seem to know that God was a bigger part of most people’s lives in the past, but they talk around the subject.  Most of the time, and this one is no different, the characters pray when they are about to die.  Do not get me wrong, one should be seeking to make peace with their Creator when it appears they are about to meet Him.  Yet, it is something that was a part of much of what people did, whether consciously or unconsciously.  Swear words were more shocking then because foul language was not considered Godly.  I still adhere to this particular principle, actually.  You could even look at the clothing styles, especially for women, as centered on maintaining Christian propriety.  This is all part of what I like to call a cinematic Christian short hand.  Understandably, you do not want to take time in a production to explain these components.  Still, if nothing else, they could have spent more time with the Rosary toting man at the beginning.  He appeared to be a man of Faith, if not specifically Catholic.  Yet, we do not get his name, nor does he make another appearance.  Hence, why is he even in the film?

The main problem for Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is that it is three hours long, but feels longer.  The secondary ones are the story lines that do not appear to be all related.  Some have praised it for its visuals.  If you want that sort of thing, and a more unified plot, go rewatch Dances with Wolves.