WESTWARD HO, AGAIN

Kevin Costner's risky western epic, Horizon, celebrates the height of the genre without quite getting there itself

- STEPHANIE ZACHAREK

EVERY TIME A FILMMAKER OR SHOWrunner takes a gamble on a big western, the takes start rolling in like wagon wheels creaking across the plain: "The western is back!" "The western never went away!" "The western is the genre we need now!" But even if westerns wax and wane in popularity every few years, they don't need a special reason to exist: the genre is as sturdy and rich as the action movie, the romantic comedy, the crime thriller, with something to offer each new generation. There's a lot that a creative, devoted filmmaker can do with the classic framework, and if anyone has the pedigree to try, it would be Kevin Costner-not just the star of TV's Yellowstone, but also the actor-director who, some 35 years ago, attempted to retool the western genre for a more culturally sensitive age.

With Horizon: An American Saga, an epic envisioned in four parts, Costner treads into more ambitious, sprawling territory than he did with 1990's Dances With Wolves, giving us a set of interlacing stories about white people pushing into the West-and, with barely a moral qualm, seizing land that had been inhabited by Indigenous people for thousands of years. The first three-hour chunk, Horizon: An American Saga-Chapter 1, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, with its creator, star, and chief risk taker in attendance. The film played well to an international crowd, and Costner was visibly moved by their enthusiastic and affectionate response.