HOSTILES 15

s cott Cooper’s (Black Mass) sturdy western drama stars Christian Bale as racist US Cavalry officer Joseph J. Blocker, who’s ordered to escort Cheyenne chief Wes Studi to safety, while Rosamund Pike is the widowed homesteader they pick up along the way. Fronting an excellent cast, Bale – who previously worked with Cooper on 2013 thriller Out Of The Furnace

– gives a typically gruff, both-barrels performance. But though the film can’t quite match him, as a portrait of how the west was ‘won’, and what it cost, it’s powerful stuff. Matt Glasby