Written and directed by Scott Cooper (Out of the Furnace), Christian Bale-led western Hostiles has just been premiered at the Telluride Film Festival on September 2, 2017. And since then, the critics worldwide have been speaking highly of the film as most of them are predicting the film would definitely be in the Oscar race next year.

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Christian Bale in Scott Cooper's Western 'Hostiles'
Christian Bale in Scott Cooper's Western 'Hostiles'Twitter

Set in 1892, Hostiles tells the story of a legendary Army Captain (Christian Bale) who, after stern resistance, reluctantly agrees to escort a dying Cheyenne war chief (Wes Studi) and his family back home to tribal lands. Making the harrowing and perilous journey from New Mexico to the grasslands of Montana, the former rivals encounter a young widow (Rosamund Pike) whose family was murdered on the plains. Together, they must join forces to overcome the punishing landscape, hostile Comanche, and vicious outliers they encounter along the way.

Hostiles feature a stellar cast including Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Jesse Plemons, Wes Studi, Pilou Asbaek, Ben Foster, Stephen Lang, Paul Anderson, and Scott Wilson.

Here is what the critics are saying:

The Hollywood Reporter

Based on a heavily researched manuscript left behind by the late screenwriter Donald Stewart (Missing), Cooper's screenplay uses its setting both to employ classical Western tropes and to reflect in a modern way on history's legacy, both good and bad. It's a bit of a modern cliché to portray the Native Americans as wise ones of few words, and more vibrations might profitably have been set off between them and Pike, whose family, after all, has been decimated by them.

The Wrap

"Hostiles" is beautifully filmed amid endless horizons by Masanobu Takayanagi, the cinematographer who shot both "Out of the Furnace" and "Black Mass." It features another standout performance by Wes Studi as Chief Yellow Hawk. Pike is marvelous in her pivotal supporting turn. Ultimately, though, the film's main artery is Bale, whose character undergoes an impossibly wide range of changes.

IndieWire

"Hostiles," a sturdy and characteristically brutal new Western from "Black Mass" director Scott Cooper, begins with somebody shooting a baby — that's not a spoiler, just a warning.

Apart from that, here is a compilation of the critics' tweets about the movie.

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