Hostiles Reviews
December 5, 2020
It's brooding and brutal and spontaneously violent, stepping very far away from the action of standard Westerns.
Full Review
| Original Score: 7/10
November 10, 2020
If you like honest westerns with pathos and a very good Christian Bale, go check it out.
October 8, 2020
Hostiles isn't without its well-written dialogue or its engaging setpieces, but for the most part it is a slow, bleak exercise that isn't quite nearly so clever as it thinks it is.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
September 11, 2020
Hostiles isn't a film for the casual moviegoer.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.0/4.0
August 29, 2020
Overall, there's enough gorgeous images, symbolic direction, poignant themes and powerful performances to recommend "Hostiles;" I just won't fault you if you're hostile to the violence.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
August 13, 2020
Respectfully, though, no amount of visual aplomb would be able to save this misguided and entirely tone-deaf pat-on-the-back.
August 7, 2020
The [central] analogy is...deeply false and disoriented...
July 18, 2020
It is dour and unrelenting, with no moments of levity from all the seriousness.
Full Review
| Original Score: B-
July 1, 2020
"Hostiles" has all the pieces in place, but in the end, more than anything, it leaves the audience wondering why they should care about this latest grim western tale with all the grim western trappings.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
June 3, 2020
A bleak but moving excursion along the closing Western frontier.
May 27, 2020
It's a jarring, sometimes brutally violent exercise in storytelling, but it's also a tremendous personal journey -- a "Heart of Darkness"-style epic that makes no promises about who, if anyone, makes it all the way home.
April 12, 2020
The film has strong, nuanced performances, beautiful images, and a perfectly match score.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
August 22, 2019
Hostiles is unyielding and brutal, and is a fine addition to the masterclass of modern westerns. [February 1, 2018]
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
August 20, 2019
A film with a distinctly Christian grasp of universal culpability and reconciling grace.
July 22, 2019
At the least, it's a plea for history not to repeat itself - with plenty of gut-check thrills and perilous storytelling to heighten the mood.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
June 3, 2019
Cooper riffs on John Ford's The Searchers in a minor key, filling Hostiles with sweeping vistas that recall the grand Monument Valley locations that graced so many classic westerns.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
April 16, 2019
If Phantom Thread was truly Daniel Day-Lewis' last movie, the title of Greatest Living Actor is now vacant; look to Christian Bale at the front of the queue of possible replacements.
Full Review
| Original Score: 8/10
February 19, 2019
It's simply a mediocre film, stuffed with filler dialogue and a surfeit of slow-motion closeups substituting for any real character development.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
January 31, 2019
A journey into the West that, feeling as tiresome as it is shallow, could never be considered inviting.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
January 24, 2019
This avoidance of anything resembling monotonic character development in Hostiles will either prove energizing or exhausting, depending on an audience's taste.
Full Review
| Original Score: 7/10