Free TV premiere “Enemies – Hostiles”
This is the Wild West where romantics will grind their teeth
Army officer Joseph J. Blocker (Christian Bale) struggles with his orders from above.
© Universum Film Germany
The free TV premiere “Feinde – Hostiles” relentlessly shows the unromantic everyday life of the Wild West with a brilliant Christian Bale.
In Germany there is a strangely romantic transfiguration when it comes to the Wild West of the USA. Karl May created the often quoted and even more often satirized bromance between Winnetou and Old Shatterhand. And for the band Truck Stop, the “wild wild west” began right behind Hamburg. Fortunately not, it shoots through your head in view of the free TV premiere of “Feinde – Hostiles” (10:40 pm, ZDF). Because then the hinterland of Hamburg would be a godless place, unsurpassed in gloom. And that would even do Buxtehude an injustice.
Familiar archenemy – This is what it’s about:
The year 1892: With this assignment, even the widely respected, dangerously jaded army officer Joseph J. Blocker (Christian Bale, 47) thinks of refusing to give orders. He of all people is supposed to bring the Cheyenne tribal leader, Chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi, 73), who has been imprisoned and dying for years, as the last escort to his former home, Montana. Has the military forgotten how many of Blocker’s men the supposedly savage man has on his conscience?
Reluctantly and suspiciously, he sets out with a handful of soldiers and the Yellow Hawks family to fulfill his mission. On the dangerous journey through the merciless terrain, the troops meet the distraught Rosalie Quaid (Rosamund Pike, 42). The family of the settler was brutally massacred by the Comanches, only she survived severely traumatized. It quickly becomes clear to the unequal bunch: only if they all pull together will the journey through the prairie not turn into a suicide mission – at least not for all of them.
Playing with the clichés
The man scalped alive, the two little girls and even a baby shot in cold blood. “Enemies – Hostiles” greets the viewer with this shocking dreariness. Who immediately worries about witnessing such a well-known Hollywood disease again – the black and white painting in the figure drawing. But here director Scott Cooper (51, “Crazy Heart”) plays with the viewing habits of the audience, shows the main character Blocker immediately after this scene, indifferently munching a piece of fruit, while a native, lamenting his family, is being treated badly by US soldiers will. No, it is a black and black painting that Cooper does – the glowing sun of the Wild West seems to have tanned the humanity of every figure shown.
This turns “Enemies – Hostiles” into a surprising, but extremely frustrating film. By renouncing a righteous hero, the viewer is deprived of a moral anchor point. At least for long stretches at the beginning of the film, which sometimes feels like work. The well-known principle, in which the antihero troops are gradually decimated, creates tension. But very few of them care about it.
No time for vanity
Anyone who is of the opinion that nothing can distort a handsome man sees himself impressively wronged by Bale’s walrus beard in “Enemies”. And even if his character repeatedly strokes his greasy hair, there is no time for vanity in the film. But probably for the actor’s outstanding facial expression, from whom the inner turmoil is always bought. At one point in the film, however, Pike presses out such convincing lamentations from a distorted grimace that one hopes that a pastor was present on the set of the flick. It has been a long time since two people in a film were so well off.
Accordingly, one looks in vain for mood-enhancing humor in film. Those who have already made friends with neo-westerns like “The Proposition” or “The Salvation – Trace of Retribution” will also like “Enemies – Hostiles”. For Karl May disciples, on the other hand, the cigarillo is likely to fall from the corner of the mouth that is drawn far down.
Conclusion:
Calling “Enemies – Hostiles” worth seeing feels wrong. Not necessarily because it isn’t, but because it suggests an overly positive feeling while looking at it. If you don’t want to see your romanticized image of the Wild West lying scalped in the dirt, you better ride around the film in a wide arc. Deserters then miss a Western that skilfully breaks with many clichés.