L'un des nôtres

Back in the 80's and 90's Kevin Costner was one of the biggest movie stars on the planet . He starred in some brilliant ( if not long ) movies but for some reason started to get a negative reputation and I'm not quite sure why . Perhaps Waterworld is to blame ? . Watching Let Him Ho you can see the man is still a very good actor but in this , he is outshone by two women.

Costner plays a retired sheriff and Diane Lane plays his wife, who ate grieving over the death of their son, they then set out to find their only grandson.

The biggest compliment I can give this film is that it reminds me a lot of Straw Dogs .

The couple have the almost impossible task of dealing with the hillbilly Weboy family who is lead by Blanche who is played brilliantly by Lesley Manville . In fact so brilliantly, she steals the show from Lane and Costner.

I enjoyed this much more than I expect.

For the most part it's a slow burner but there are plenty of tense action scenes in it to not make it dull.

Not bad at all .

I didn't expect the story to be so dark and disturbing. It is probably too dark for me to enjoy, but it is still engaging.

This new Western blends elements of noir, drama, and suspense to create a generally searing character study. Set in the 1960s, it tells the story of a retired sheriff (Kevin Costner) and his wife (Diane Lane.) Their young grandson has been spending time with his stepfather, whom they view as suspicious and is married to their son's widow. The leading couple leaves from Montana to the Dakotas to visit their step-family and try to get their grandson back, but things go south very quickly. The performances are generally powerful all around. Costner and Lane give clear emotional depth as well as a real sense of genuineness and urgency while in character. They feel haunted with grief from the death of their son, yet also proactively driven by a strong desire to ensure their grandson is properly treated. The film's cinematography of the Great Plains is gorgeous (although it was actually filmed in Alberta, Canada,) and the score is also quietly powerful.

In the second half of the film, the dramatic tension is gradually increased both through the slow-burn tone as well as the dialogue. The film's gritty and slow-burn style may remind viewers of thrillers written and/or directed by Taylor Sheridan. Without going into any detail, suffice it to say that characters' instincts may be brought to a boiling point. However, the sudden and occasionally uneven increases in dramatic tension as well as violence do not always feel conducive to the film's tone. As a result, the film doesn't quite comment as starkly on its characters' behaviors or the nature of violence as thoughtfully as it intends to. The motivations of the characters are also rather predictable, and outside of Costner and Lane's characters, I did not find the rest of them to be especially engaging. Even though the characters are well-developed, the roles they play in creating some of the story's suspense are not inherently unique. That said, this is still a well-acted and well-shot thriller that should please patient viewers that know what they're in for. 7/10

Great casting, cinematography, sets and location, but novice writer and director Thomas Bezucha made this one a very unnecessarily slow burner. The 113 runtime was way too long for this story, and felt twice as long with the slow pacing, long dragged out scenes and unnecessary still shots. If you watched this at 1.2x speed, it'd be bearable. The screenplay needed a good 20-30 mins edited/cut out. The sound/score could've also been better. Not sure if it was Costner's character, or he was bored during filming, because this wasn't one of his finest performances - by a long shot. Never mind all the bogus 9's and 10's, this is an honest and very generous 6/10 from me.

Like many I'm a BIG Costner fan. This one could easily have been a rugged but amiable Western drama, but, like the moth flying close to the flame it gets tinged by inflexions of horror - a disquieting experience for the unwary. The plot has at its center the 'kidnap by marriage' of aged Margaret and George's grandson, goaded on by another interestingly psychotic family of near in-laws, resembling to no small degree the Snell Family of Netflix's 'Ozark', though this time featuring North Dakota as that bastion of redneck eccentricity. On the good side, it's a terrifyingly real situation, acted out charmingly by Kevin Costner with his trademark reserve. But the movie was a little long, with those now clichéd tropes, the sort that better directors do well to avoid.