Kevin Costner’s “Horizon: An American Saga” is a sprawling and fresh take on the classic Western genre. A stellar cast and stunning frontier backdrop underscore a highly compelling plot that weaves together the stories of multiple protagonists as it takes the audience along for a unique look into America’s western origins. The film, the first installment in what’s meant to be a four part series, sets the scene for an expansive western-themed cinematic universe.
Set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, the majority of the movie’s characters are manifest destiny-type travelers heading west to seek a better life in the frontier. While the scope of the film, as a consequence of the wide swath of characters’ stories it covers, is broad, it still manages to set a tone that focuses more on the struggles of everyday travelers from this time period rather than forcing a historical or political narrative. A still shot of Kevin Costner’s character Hayes Ellison in the new Costner-directed “Horizon: An American Saga.
” Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema. A consistent thematic throughline of the movie is the town of Horizon, an idyllic-seeming settlement advertised on flyers which every character in the movie seems to be running towards. Shot amidst the stunning vistas of Zion National Park in Utah, the cinematic specter of mountains, deserts, blue skies and wide open spaces, it’s extremely visually compelling and the cinematography takes you back to what se.
