4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / HDR SCREENSHOTS
(1) Kevin Costner spent nearly 35 years trying to get the story of “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1” onto the silver screen. He plays horse trader Hayes Ellison. (2) A wagon train heads west. (3) Right, Owen Crow Shoe plays White Mountain Apache warrior Pionsemay.
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“HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA – CHAPTER 1”
4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray; 2024; R for violence, discreet sex, partial nudity and profanity; Digital via Amazon Video (4K), Apple TV (4K), Fandango Home (4K), Movies Anywhere (4K), YouTube (4K)
Best extra: There are only two short featurettes via digital copy (Apple TV)
ACTOR/WRITER/DIRECTOR/PRODUCER Kevin Costner knows a thing or two about the 19th-century American West.
In the spring of 1991, Costner won the Academy Award for Best Director for his film “Dances with Wolves,” which also won Best Picture. “It’s a film about a white man who goes to live with American Indians (Lakotas) and learns their civilization first hand,” writes the late Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert. “The movie is a simple story, magnificently told. It has the epic sweep and clarity of a Western by John Ford, and it abandons the contrivances of ordinary plotting to look, in detail, at the way strangers get to know one another.” Ebert gave the film 4 stars out of 4.
Just over a decade later, Costner filmed another classic Western “Open Range,” with co-star Robert Duvall about free-grazing cattlemen vs. a wealthy ranger. “An imperfect but deeply involving and beautifully made Western, works primarily because it expresses the personal values of a cowboy named Boss (Duvall) and his employee of 10 years, Charley (Costner),” says Ebert in his 2003 review, and he gave it 3 ½ stars out of 4.
San Pedro Valley, 1859
(1&2) Two surveyors, with a young boy, plot the town of Horizon, while Apache warriors Pionsemay and center, Taklishim (Tatanka Means), watch from a cliffside. (3) Missionary Desmarais (Angus Macfadyen) rides past an abandoned mission in the Arizona Territory. (4&5) He discovers the bodies of the Horizon surveyors and the boy and buries them along the San Padro River.
Two decades later, his most ambitious effort, spending over 35 years, is his attempt to make a sweeping epic of the American frontier in four films. The first installment, “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1,” hit theaters in late June. At its initial premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, 69-year-old Costner received an 11-minute standing ovation after its three-hour running time.
But the applause was soon replaced by unenthusiastic reviews from top critics. “Horizon: Chapter 1” only received a 26 percent rating, although moviegoers were more positive giving it 70 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
The opening weekend was a bumpy ride; I watched the film in a nearly empty multiplex theater with four others. A month later, New Line Cinema pulled the film and pivoted it toward digital premium video. The worldwide box office was a disappointing $34 million, and the studio withdrew its planned August release date for “Horizon: Chapter Two.” Costner notoriously mortgaged his ranch, using assets of $40 million toward the estimated $100 million production of the first two films.
Costner’s financial rewards as family patriarch John Dutton on the popular television show “Yellowstone,” must have paved the way for “Horizon.” His departure from the show was led by shooting schedule conflicts with “Chapter Three,” which is in production in Utah. Funding for “Chapter Four” is still in question.
Montana Territory
(1&2) Right, Mrs. Sykes (Dale Dickey) watches as her badly injured husband James (Charles Halford) is carried into the family compound. He has been shot by Ellen “Lucy” Harvey (Jena Malone), who had a baby with James.
My impressions were much more encouraging as I wrote on “X” June 28th.
“SAW IT LAST NIGHT, and yes, it’s LONG, and several of the scenes are still hitting me with emotion. I can’t wait for PART 2!!!”
“Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2” just premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival. All along, Costner wanted the four installments to debut “five-six months apart.” At this point, No theatrical release date has been set for “Chapter Two” by New Line/Warner Brothers Discovery.
THIS WEEK “Horizon: Chapter One” arrived on physical 4K, and I’m even more motivated to see Chapter 2. Costner plays horse trader Hayes Ellison, who doesn’t appear until the 60-minute mark, where he saves a desperate woman from a psychotic killer.
The film’s first act is brilliantly composed with iconic imagery by Costner and cinematographer J. Michael Muro (“Crash,” “Longmire” TV series) – who should receive an Oscar nomination – filming the Apache rebellion at Horizon, a settlement in Arizona’s San Pedro River Valley. Costner’s epic spans 15 years of the westward expansion from the American Civil War, as whites pushed into tribal territories, leading to violent conflict with the Indigenous peoples. The story weaves back and forth between pioneers, gunslingers, U.S. Cavalry and the Native tribes people speaking their own tongue (subtitles).
The supporting cast includes Sienna Miller (Frances Kittredge), Sam Worthington (Lt. Trent Gephart), Michael Rooker (Sgt. Thomas Riordan), Abbey Lee (Marigold), Luke Wilson (Matthew Van Weyden), Owen Crow Shoe (Pionsenay), Tatanka Means (Taklishim), Jena Malone (Ellen Harvey), Will Patton (Owen Kittredge) and Georgia MacPhail (Elizabeth Kittredge).
Horizon, 1863
(1) Leaflets for the town of Horizon draw dozens of families to the San Pedro Valley. (2&3) The White Mountain Apaches torch the town during an evening dance. Frances Kittredge (Sienna Miller) and her daughter Elizabeth (Georgia MacPhail) try to survive the attack by hiding inside a tunnel built under their Homestead. (4) The next morning survivors pick through the rubble and bury the dead. (5&6) Lt. Trent Gephart (Sam Worthington), Sgt. Major Thomas Riordan (Michael Rooker) and their men arrive too late to stop the attack. Lt. Gephart asks the survivors, “What are you doing here?” And, a gentleman responds, “It’s where we live, sir.” (7) Mrs. Kittredge and Elizabeth are pulled from the tunnel. (8) Col. Albert Houghton (Danny Huston) reads one of the leaflets.
White Mountain Apache Village
(1-3) After the attack on Horizon, Pionsemay argues with Tribal elder Tuayeseh (Gregory Curz). (4&5) Pionsemay’s wife Liluye (Wasé Chief) disagrees with his actions; now, many women are widows.
EXTRAS
The two promotional featurettes are so short we only get a glimpse into Costner’s Western. “Kevin’s been sitting on this story for years. And, I think ‘Horizon’ embodies the Western genre, that allows all stories and all sides to be told,” actress Jena Malone says. “I knew that I was going to wear a lot of hats and I was never going to turn this over to anybody else to direct,” Costner says.
VIDEO
All of the sensational imagery was captured on 6K and 8K digital cameras (1.85:1 aspect ratio) with a touch of post-production film grain. Small specks of dirt and dust were even applied and mastered in TRUE 4K. The Southwest color palette of reds and brown dominates the landscape, while the cast wears a spectrum of earth tones, perfectly rendered via HDR10 and Dolby Vision grading. The expanded color spectrum helps control the excess red/orange push on faces in SDR. Only a short burst of grain management issue hits around the 43-minute mark on all platforms from digital and physical discs.
Everything was encoded onto a 100 GB disc, and video bitrate averages in the mid-50 Megabits per second, with breathtaking on-screen results from Grand and San Juan counties in southern Utah. The HDR10 peak brightness is on the low side peaking at 221 nits and averages at 80 nits.
AUDIO
The Dolby Atmos soundtrack is active in front, center and rears, delivering music cues from composer John Debney (“The Greatest Showman,” “Hatfields & McCoys” TV mini-series) and environmental effects (birds, rain, bullets, fire) to height speakers. The orchestrated score was recorded with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, with a variety of orchestrated sounds including folk violin music. At the same time, the theme is serviceable, but not on the level of the grand Western themes: “The Magnificent Seven,” “The Good, the Bad and The Ugly,” “The Big Country,” “Dances with Wolves,” “Once Upon a Time in the West,” “High Noon” and “Silverado.”
Kevin Costner is doing his part to keep the Western genre alive, first as an actor in “Silverado” (1985), and for the last three decades as a director. We can only hope the next three installments of “Horizon” will light the silver screen and our home theaters with the adventure and chaos of moving through the American West.
— Bill Kelley III, High-Def Watch producer
Wyoming Territory
(1) Marigold (Abbey Lee), a prostitute in a Wyoming mining town, sets her sights on Hayes Ellison (Costner) as he arrives in town. She also babysits Sam, the infant son of Ellen “Lucy” Harvey, who ran away after shooting James Sykes. (2-4) Caleb Sykes (James Campbell Bower) tries to draw Ellison into a gunfight as he searches for baby Sam. (5&6) Caleb’s dead body arrives back at the family compound. (7) Ellison, Marigold, and the baby leave the mining town knowing the Sykes clan will hunt them down.
Wagon Train
(1) One of the travelers on the Santa Fe Trail lifts a wagon on his back to replace a broken wheel. (2&3) British schoolteacher Juliette Chesney (Ella Hunt) and her husband Hugh Proctor (Tom Payne) are rebuked for not helping during the journey.
Revenge
(1) Several survivors of the attack on Horizon seek Apache scalps for revenge. (2) They discover a village and wait for the warriors to leave to hit the women and children. (3) One of the Apache women spears an attacker.
Sending the Soldiers Off
(1) Elizabeth Kittredge gives Private Eklund (Chase Ramsey) and Private Epps (Dalton Baker) flower-shaped material from her family quilt. (2) Frances Kittredge views a portrait of Sgt. Major Thomas Riordan’s youngest daughter. (3) Frances hugs Lt. Gephart as he departs.