America's Native American problem, circa 1814, in Ted Geoghegan's MOHAWK

The War of 1812 is not used as a backdrop for all that many movies -- America's Revolutionary War gets much more screen and cable-TV time -- so it's rather nice to see this nearly three-year war lend its muted history to MOHAWK, the new film from Ted Geoghegan, who both directed it and co-wrote it (with Grady Hendrix).

Mr Geoghegan's (the movie-maker is shown below) first film foray, We Are Still Here, was a genre piece (haunted-house horror) and so is his new one -- except in this case, his movie is a genre-jumper/masher.

Part western, part military vs the Indians, part guilt trip regarding America's horrendous treatment of Native Americans back in the day (it's little better now: we've wiped most of them out and stripped the rest of their lands, so we need only make their current lives as miserable as possible), and part (sort-of) supernatural goings-on, the movie manages to blend all these with a little history, too, and Geoghagen dishes this out with just enough flair to pass muster.

The director handles some of his action scenes quite well, but his forays into suspense and expectation drag too much and may have you muttering, "Get on with it!"  Still, as Native American guilt-trips go, this one is infinitely better than the recent molasses-slow, way-too-long and uber-pretentious Hostiles.

Geoghegan has cast his film well, too, with its three leads giving impressive performances and supporting players generally good, as well. Those leads would include Ezra Buzzington (above, left) and Kaniehtiio Horn (below, right) as, respectively, military and Indian adversaries, while Eamon Farren makes a handsome, sexy almost-hero, as the Britisher trying to engage the Indians into fighting the Americans.

The film takes place mostly in yet another naughty forest which seems to have maybe supernatural powers -- we've just seen two more of these in The Ritual and They Remain -- but the director mines the place for some beauty as well as for blood, gore and creepiness. (That's Jon Huber, wrestler-turned-actor, shown below.)

My biggest question about the film, however, lies in why this story needed any supernatural element attached to it at all? It could have worked quite nicely as just an action/western. yet the other worldliness begins early on and then is left at the starting gate and only seems to reappear very late in the game. Ms Horn does turn into something of a wonder woman, I guess, which is utterly unbelievable unless you grant her that supernatural overlay.

As with all these current super-hero movies, magical powers seem to be the only way we have of righting the world's many wrongs. Too bad. My other caveat has to do with the costume that our heroine wears throughout. While it may have been researched and found to be authentic, it still looks so "modern" (not only in the design but in the choice of fabrics) as to be faintly ridiculous.

From Dark Sky Films and running a little too long even at only 92 minutes, Mohawk opens today, Friday, March 2, in seven cities -- before unfurling in other parts of the country in the weeks to come. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters. And if you're not near these particular cities, the film is also playing simultaneously via VOD and HD digital.

Short take: Scott Cooper's endlessly annoying HOSTILES proves this year's favored "fart" film

Or maybe last year's, as HOSTILES, the new movie from Scott Cooper, was released in limited fashion on December 22, in the rather ridiculous hopes of becoming an Oscar contender. "Fart" film, for those new to this site, is TrustMovies' special name for a failed art film, and few I've sat through in the past 12, maybe 24, months, have failed on the level that this one does. Oh, its themes and intentions are all good -- pointing up unfairness of the treatment of our Native Americans, while allowing that, yes, some of them, did some pretty nasty things to those white settlers.

Unfortunately, filmmaker Cooper (shown at right), who both wrote and directed the film (after giving us, also in the writer-director category, Crazy Heart and Out of the Furnace), is a fellow who insists on making certain we get the point. Every single last lick of it. Over and over. And as slowly as possible so that it has to SINK IN. Lasting two hours fourteen minutes, Hostiles may seem to you, as it did to me (and others in our audience) about as slow-paced a movie as you'll have so far seen. At one point in the theater, a patron near me asked, and very loudly, "When it something gonna happen here?!" This was followed by several voices adding, "Yeah!" and "Right!" I tend to keep quiet most of the time in movie theaters, but I must say I could not blame them. Though in all fairness, the movie does begin with an action scene, as a family of white settlers is summarily massacred by a group of wild Indians, with only the wife (the always excellent Rosamund Pike, shown below) barely surviving.

From there we go to a military fort, where an officer (the also always excellent Christian Bale, below, center, surrounded by his men) who has a multitude of reasons for hating the "red man" is given the assignment of bringing an Indian chief and his family (the Chief is played by Wes Studi, at left, two photos down), who had formerly slaughtered a number this officer's friends and has now been imprisoned for years, to an out-of-state Indian burial ground, where the Chief, who has been graced with terminal cancer, will surely die.

If you maybe feel that this rather oddball situation smacks of heavy-handed manipulation -- does it ever! -- just wait. Along the journey, Bale and his crew discover Pike, in mourning for her own family, and of course they must bring her with them. Their journey is fraught with a couple more Indian attacks, but mostly it is burdened with a whole bunch of angst on Bale's part. And while this actor is often particularly good with angst, here the stuff is piled on so hot and heavy that it drags the film consistently downwards. The screenplay, dialog and the visuals are as heavy-handed as the themes, and this tends to make even those few scenes that resonate emotionally hit you over the head so hard you'll want to run for cover.

At least half the film's "moments" last far too long, as well, so that you're muttering throughout, "We get it, we get it." Robert Aldrich and Alan Sharp, in their excellent Ulzana's Raid from 1972, managed much of these same ideas so much better and stronger. Plus, their movie is a half-hour shorter. If you know that film, it will make sitting through this one all the more difficult. Finally, it is Hostiles' undue length, resulting in a kind of constant, overweening pomposity, that most thoroughly does it in.

Yes, indeed, as the poster at top declares, We are all... HOSTILES, in yet another example of "we-insist-that-you-fully-understand-this-idea" mode. And the movie does finally bring whites and redskins together at last (while killing most of them in the process). But if, considering all that has now been done to the Native American population, you can actually buy the sweet/sad finale without wincing, you're a better man I am, Gunga Din.

From Entertainment Studios Motions Pictures, the movie has now opened in a number of cities around the country. Click here to find the theater(s) nearest you.