Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 review — Kevin Costner’s epic Western demands patience

Kevin Costner understands patience. It took the actor-turned-director over three decades to realize his long-life dream project, Horizon: An American Saga – Part 1, the first installment of an ambitious four-part series paying homage to the classic American Western.

Patience is also required of those who agree to the undertaking of watching the three-hour-long sprawling epic. The first chapter of Horizon is directed, written, starred, and produced by Costner, who gives in to all the excesses of a creative who has waited far too long to get a project off the ground.

Still, despite its lulling pacing and scattered story, there is some pleasure to be found in the film’s moving sincerity and what it says about big, bold labors of love.

Costner is one of the last great bastions of the American Western, his directing career deeply intertwined with the genre. From Dances With the Wolves to Open Range and Yellowstone, the actor brought modern sensibilities to the classic gunslinging tropes, contracting and expanding the classic language of the Western to evolve from a student enraptured by the films of John Wayne and John Ford to one of the great modern Western directors. 

Horizon represents Kevin Costner’s Western legacy

Horizon: An American Saga – Part 1 adds to that legacy. It follows three parallel stories taking place across Montana, Wyoming, and Kansas as a slew of characters head to and from the new settlement of Horizon. What the hopefuls don’t know and the dissidents know far too well is that Horizon is far from the idyllic haven of prosperity sold to stragglers across the country. It is a land not of opportunity but of violence, stolen from the Apache Natives who won’t go down without a fight.

A revolving door of familiar faces plays the many characters introduced in Part 1. Costner is the amusingly named Hayes Ellison, a moustachioed rider quick with a gun and smooth with the charm. Sienna Miller is Frances Kitteridge, a grieving mother who finds another chance at love with Sam Worthington’s dashing lieutenant and Luke Wilson headlines the third act as the unelected wagon train leader struggling with a lack of resources and a surplus of spoiled leeches.

The remainder of the cast includes names such as Jena Malone, Danny Huston, Owen Crow Shoe, Thomas Haden Church, Abbey Lee, Isabelle Furhman, and Jamie Campbell Bower as an over-the-top bad guy looking like he’s headed straight to Coachella. 

In a strange dichotomy, Horizon: An American Saga – Part 1 feels endless, an unhurried, expansive epic with a clear vision of this world and the people who inhabit it. This vision, however, is not always clear for those on the other side of the experience — characters come and go without much time dedicated to expanding their backstories, their names fusing into one another with time, a mishmash of similar-looking wives and daughters and cowboys.

Horizon is a classic Western — and a risky bet

Warner Bros.

It is a somewhat soulless, low-stakes procession, this series of pawns concocted solely to tease a climax that never comes while similarly failing to build a cliffhanger to entice audiences to come back for a second hurrah (let alone a third or fourth). It is quite the risky bet, considering Part 1 arrives in cinemas in June with Part 2 quickly following suit in August.

As Costner’s saga zigzags through the desert, offering a handful of tidbits on sex workers, hired guns, and men of law, what remains is a desire for more clarity and a deeper understanding of the relationships at hand. While some characters linger like stray dogs, others are notedly scarce, like brilliant character actress Dale Dickey as the matriarch of the conniving Sykes clan. Others are briefly introduced with the insinuation of a meatier, more prominent role in following installments, a suggestion made clearer through the film’s closing credits, a slightly comic montage of moments to come in Part 2.

Costner only shows up onscreen an hour in. The director shapes his role after the archetypal Western heroes of his childhood but leaves very little room to make it his own. Ellison is a stern and to-the-point kind of guy who, of course, wins the heart of a beautiful woman thirty years his junior. Nothing in particular makes him cool, there is no signature gunslinging trick, no snarky running joke, no particular physical trait. Plus, his conflicts are all very swiftly resolved, leaving his hero arc far too tidy for the installments still to come.

Horizon: Chapter 1 review score — 3/5

Horizon: An American Saga – Part 1 will most likely cater best to those already converted to the joys of the classic Western. The vastness of the American badlands is captured in all their expansive glory by cinematographer J. Michael Muro, with John Debney’s 1950s-inspired score making it almost seem as if John Wayne and Natalie Wood are lingering on the corner of the screen, ready to come out at any second.

It is a poignant watch for fans of Costner, too, and a worthy undertaking for those still romantic about supporting the rarer and rarer indulgences of great cinema legends. 

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 hits cinemas on June 28, before Part 2’s release on August 16. Check out our ranking of the best Westerns of all time and the best Western TV shows.