This is brief commentary and a cautionary movie review.

Movie attendance is at a 24 year low. Hollywood films oooooze political correctness and nowhere is this more apparent than with the feature film, Hostiles. It would be nice if SOME  SMALL EFFORT was put into historical research before Hollywood embarked on its block busters. 
In order to make Hostiles even more politically correct, they manage to write in a negro soldier (The US Army was segregated in 1892) into the small band of US Army soldiers who are taking an old Indian from Texas (in Comanche territory) to Montana (a distance of 1568 miles). The old Indian is dying and the US Army wants to insure that he goes to the happy hunting grounds in a place of his choosing. 
1568 miles through HOSTILE land, and who does the Army send? Two officers, an NCO, two troopers and a negro private (Buffalo Soldier). Do they have a wagon with supplies? No. They do have the pissed off, but dying Indian to care for. The political correctness gets even more correct because everyone hates the land, hates where they are and what they’re doing. They pick up people along the way including Rosamund Pike (yes, naturally a hot woman not a prairie hag).
Historically, sixteen years previously to the movie time period, the US Seventh Cavalry Regiment with 700 men were all but wiped out in Montana. Though many of the hostiles escaped into Canada, the land was not settled and six soldiers in the open, un-supplied with food and additional ammunition, with Indians still scalping and killing doesn’t make for a metric of success. And all this to take a dying Indian to his burial ground?
I can tell you what would happen. Once out of sight of the fort, the soldiers would have killed the old Indian, rolled him into a gully and put some cut brush on the carcass. Then they would have either taken the “big bounce” (deserted) which was common in that timeframe, or would have holed up somewhere for a week or two and would have returned with the sad news that the chief died prematurely. So sad. 
Movie Rating on the LL scale, 1 out of a possible 10. Because the premise of the movie is completely STUPID. But it’s politically very correct.
Keep in mind that I am deplorable and now I’m possibly also hostile.

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37 COMMENTS

  2. >nice if … EFFORT was put into historical research
    The point isn't historical accuracy, the point is indoctrination. And how clever our betters and masters are, to get us to PAY OUT OF POCKET for our political indoctrination, and even to emplace spy devices in our own homes.

    >Buffalo soldier
    I'm not going to watch the movie, but I will predict that he was the most wise, humane, empathetic, and generous character, apart possibly from the old Indian.

  3. I like nothing better than a good, entertaining film and I don't mind if my preconceived notions of this or that are challenged, but this sort of film is drivel. Not unlike just about EVERYTHING that Hollywood is putting out. The Hollywood reaction is to increase the price at the box office – and that's very progressive. Feels like California.

  4. Or in my case, to encourage children to give Echos to their dad. I'm near certain that the on/off switch on the Echo doesn't work and that it's "always on and listening". It's also true of those politically correct thermostats that are available now. It (not you) decides how warm or cold your house should be. Naturally it's connected to the Internet, but I'm not sure where it connects to. I had one of those in the old house and ended up disabling it.

    As to the buffalo soldier – how did you guess? Did you do a private screening of the film?

  5. This is one of the biggest reasons I don't go to any movies that have anything to do with "the human condition", past or present. Everything gets recast into today's leftist culture.

    No movies like this for me. Nothing but escapism or goofy movies.

  6. Star Wars worked as do some of the super hero movies which are animated enough to be cartoons after a fashion. It's not that Hollywood couldn't come up with a formulaic Western that worked. It's that they don't want to.

    Actor/Writer Taylor Sheridan did a good job with Wind River Hell or High Water and Sicario. All of those movies had people of different races, financial conditions and situations. They spoke to the human condition but did so fairly.

  7. It will be a tie between the mystical magical negro and the mystical magical Indian who are wiser and kinder than any of us deplorables. Yet Hostiles is being called the best western since Unforgiven. Whatever you do, don't listen to the PC critics.

    I haven't been to a movie since the first maker over of Star Trek and it was pathetic.

  8. Just an aside. We went to see the Darkest Hours the other day. Great movie about a great man!! Well worth a couple hours

  9. Haven't been inside a movie theater since 1997. Don't rent movies. Why pay to be exploited? Instead, I read books.

  10. One must keep in mind that this was still in the era of Generals Sherman and Sheridan who maintained that, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." (yes, I know that they both left active military service a few years before the movie is set, but they left their stamp on their successors)

  11. Just to clarify, it is all the blasted commercials. The authors/producers/directors have a point of view. I can accept that.

  13. >how did you guess?
    I used my psychic powers, just like Hannelore (the blonde girl).

    Ah, I had some other remarks about the stereotypes that TV and Hollywood would have us believe, but better redacted, I think….

  14. The cinematography is said to be nice. But most people don't pay $10+ per head (plus snacks) to sit there and look at scenery.

  15. The first twenty or so minutes of each movie now is taken up with commercials, which is yet another axe that we all must grind.

  16. Hollywood, in their progressive splendor, is completely insulting in the way that characters that don't fit into their lens of things are stereotyped. Sometimes that's accurate and when it is, I shrug my shoulders. Many times it is not, but they are the erudite, progressive, illuminated makers of movies and consider themselves above the petty complaints of the common man who pays for the luxury that they bask in.

  18. The premise alone is crazy. For that time period, I doubt any Indianan, unless he was the illegitimate child of the President, would be given that honor. Even the most loyal scout would only be sent back to he reservation. Or, like you say, twenty miles out and he is out.

  19. Considering the number of sequels and re-makes, is there anyone in Hollyweird capable of an original idea? Or anything more than a paper thin plot loaded up with so much mechanical CG that it wears you out just to watch it?

    As to today's topic, I would just as soon watch the classic 'Sergeant Rutledge'.

  22. Most screenwriters smoke too much dope and hang around in Hollywood bars meeting new friends and collecting (and trading) STD's.

  23. There are a lot of good old Indian vs US Army movies – She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Broken Arrow, Fort Apache, etc. I like the old John Ford movies the best.

  26. I'm not against movies, sometime's they're great, but I'll pass on this.

    Maybe Hollywood needs a serious boycott. Just a thought.

  27. Kids go to movies a lot. They're conditioned to accept revisionist history slop as being genuine. It props up the industry.

    It also kept a steady stream of young, pretty, nubile, girls arriving at Harvey Weinstein's studio, (among others)…the boys went to Spacey's Malibu home to look at his etchings. They are grist that Hollywood runs on. Believe it.

  35. They ran Gunfight at OK Corral on the Outdoor Channel last night. Its historical accuracy is no better, but it is an entertaining film, something that seems to be a lost art in Hollywood.

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