Cowboys and clichés: Horizon – An American Saga reviewed

Horizon: An American Saga is a Western directed by Kevin Costner. It also stars Kevin Costner and is co-written by Kevin Costner and has been bankrolled by Kevin Costner – so if it’s Kevin Costner you’re after, happy days. This is Chapter One, and there are three more chapters to come, so even though it’s a whopping three hours long it’s only a quarter of a film.

Now I have to say something positive about it because, you know, Costner re-mortgaged his house to fund it and everything. Sienna Miller is a positive. I liked the way that, even when her character was under extreme duress (in 1856), she still looked like she’d just come from an appointment at Toni & Guy. I hope I have now done my bit in keeping Mr Costner afloat.

This is a vanity project – or a passion project, depending on your view of it – and it certainly takes itself very seriously. It has the cinematography you’d expect of a Western, as well as the vast landscapes and the emphatic, sweeping music and thundering horses and the little town with just one saloon and one store – and, yup, there she is, the sexy hooker hanging out of a window. What it doesn’t have is anything original to say if, that is, it has anything to say at all. Still, it’s early days, remember. There are three films still to go.

It opens in the San Pedro Valley in the 1850s where a band of white settlers have unwisely chosen to set up at an Apache river crossing. One night, while they are carousing, the Apaches attack. This is a prolonged, graphically violent scene during which Frances Kittredge (Miller) loses her husband and son.