Hostiles (DVD)

Starring Christian Bale, Rosamund Pike, Wes Studi, Jesse Plemons, Adam Beach, Rory Cochrane, Timothée Chalamet, Ben Foster, Jonathan Majors and Q’orianka Kilcher. Written and directed by Scott Cooper. Out Tuesday on DVD. 133 minutes. 14A Constant killing “makes you feel inhuman after a while,” as a character observes in Hostiles, writer/ director Scott Cooper’s doleful western set on the Great Plains of 1892.

It’s not an issue for U.S. army captain Joseph Blocker (Christian Bale), who’d sooner shoot the “wretched savages” he encounters than look at them. He’s the last guy you’d expect to be sent on a mercy mission to escort dying Cheyenne chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) and his family (Adam Beach, Q’orianka Kilcher, Xavier Horsechief and Tanaya Beatty) to sacred lands in Montana.

But Blocker duly saddles up, in the company of loyal men played by Rory Cochrane, Timothée Chalamet, Jesse Plemons and Jonathan Majors. They’ll soon be in the company of a disloyal man (Ben Foster) and also a grieving and angry woman named Rosalee (Rosamund Pike), who saw her entire family killed by marauding Comanche warriors.

The road ahead will be long and dangerous, although Masanobu Takayanagi’s cinematography, enhanced by Max Richter’s evocative score, makes it seem majestic.

Extras include several makingof featurettes.