Chapter 1 of Costner's "Horizon" saga is pure preparation, but not enough action

Every decade or so, someone tries to reinvent the classic Western, usually on an epic scale. Sometimes they succeed very well (“Stagecoach,” “Shane,” “Unforgiven”), sometimes not so well (“Silverado,” “Tombstone,” “That’s the Wild West”). Star director Kevin Costner himself won several Oscars in 1990 with “Dances with Wolves” and recently breathed new life into the modern Western and his career with the hugely popular TV series “Yellowstone.” With “Horizon: An American Saga: Chapter 1” – the first three-hour part of what Costner calls a four-part, twelve-hour widescreen epic – he is clearly aiming for the greatest Western of all.

Wait a minute, buddy.

Horizon etc. etc. Chapter 1 is a 181-minute act of throat-clearing, as director/co-writer/star Costner introduces multiple characters in multiple locations without much connection. That will probably come later, but it requires many viewers to treat the set design as a standalone entertainment. (“Chapter 2” hits theaters in August; “Chapter 3” is currently filming. “Chapter 4”? It’s anyone’s guess.)

“Chapter 1” offers some good performances and stirring sequences, but also a lot of Western cliches, some of which aim for and achieve classicism, others of which just feel backwards. To summarize the various storylines: In 1859, the young town of Horizon in Arizona – at this point a tent city at a river crossing – is attacked by an Apache war band. Frances Kittredge (Sienna Miller) and her daughter Lizzie (Georgia MacPhail) are left behind. They are taken in by a nearby U.S. Army regiment commanded by the brave Lt. Trent Gephart (Sam Worthington) and the wise Col. Houghton (Danny Huston). Meanwhile, young Russell (Etienne Kellici), another survivor, joins a force torn between finding the warriors responsible for the massacre and murdering every native they encounter.

Meanwhile, in Montana, Ellen (Jena Malone) tries to kill the violent patriarch of a settler clan and heads off to the territories with baby in tow and his angry sons on the trail. Meanwhile, in Wyoming, in another frontier town, a mule train arrives led by the taciturn Hayes Ellison (Costner), who meets the prettiest freelance prostitute (Abbey Lee) you’ve ever seen and gets into a shootout with one of the aforementioned angry sons (Jamie Campbell Bower, giving one of the film’s better performances as an irritable psychopath).

In the meantimeA wagon train of pioneer settlers heads west along the Santa Fe Trail, led by the intrepid Captain Matt Van Weyden (Luke Wilson) and including a family led by Owen Kittredge (the always welcome Will Patton), a prissy, good-for-nothing British couple (Tom Payne and Ella Hunt), and a few black sheep (Douglas Smith and Roger Ivens). In the meantimeBack in Arizona, the Apaches split into two camps: one is led by the bloodthirsty Pionsenay (Owen Crow Shoe), the other by the pacifist Liluye (Wasé Chief). In the meantimeThere is a family of Chinese railway workers who will apparently appear in later chapters, while Giovanni Ribisi, who is credited third, only appears in teaser shots for Chapter 2.

If this indicates the adaptation of “Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1” is a mess, well, it is. The pieces are there – the masterful opening massacre sequence, the showdown between Ellison and the psychopath, the scenes in the wagon train – but the connective tissue is almost nonexistent, with some characters apparently forming close relationships between scenes and other characters getting lots of close-ups without ever making it clear who they are.

Costner’s classicism extends to a great John Ford worship, and while there is nothing wrong with that in principle, in practice it results in hackneyed cliches like an Irish sergeant with a thick accent (Michael Rooker, who understates more than Victor McLaglen ever did) and female characters standing around in gingham while the men do everything except the laundry. The less said about the Apache woman who looks like a supermodel, the better.

Costner, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jon Baird and Mark Kasdan (brother of Silverado director Lawrence Kasdan), deserves credit for partially financing the project himself. but if he has a vision, it is not yet in sight. Perhaps he has an epic novel in mind, but what he gives us with “Chapter 1” is more of a table of contents.

R. In the theaters in the area. Contains Violence, some nudity and sexuality. 181 minutes.

Ty Burr is the author of the newsletter with film recommendations Ty Burr’s Watch List at tyburrswatchlist.com.