Kevin Costner’s Horizon may be ‘dull and incoherent’ – but bad reviews won’t stop Yellowstone fanboys

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival last week, is Costner’s comeback of sorts: his first leading film role since 2020, and his first directorial effort since 2003’s Open Range. If there’s a romance to this premise, it seems critics didn’t get the briefing; early previews have seen Costner’s passion project branded “dull” and “incoherent”. Scattershot character roles and foggy turns in superhero blockbusters gave way to what is so far the defining work of late-period Costner: TV’s Yellowstone. Critics have described it as perpetuating “white grievance”; Vulture wrote that Yellowstone’s core ideology was “a desperate and threatened appeal to American identity and white masculinity that makes the Paramount series palpably different from other family rivalry dramas like Billions or Succession”.