Here’s Why Luke Wilson Is the Best Thing about ‘Horizon: An American Saga’ (So Far)

Kevin Costner’s three-hours-and-counting western Horizon: An American Saga has a lot of characters – at least three-dozen seemingly important speaking parts, and that’s just the count for Chapter 1 , the installment hitting digital this week after underperforming in its theatrical release. Despite its big-screen-friendly vistas and landscapes, it may play better at home, because the expectations for a story to be resolved in a tidy two (or three) hours are lower on TV – and maybe also because dedicated viewers can take notes about who’s who in the films various storylines. Though it seems as if most of the characters will eventually converge upon the settlement town of Horizon, sometime in Chapter 2 or possibly the only partially-shot Chapter 3 , many of them don’t intersect at all in Chapter 1 .

In some ways, that’s part of the fun of the movie. If you aren’t interested in one particular storyline, just wait a few minutes – a new one will probably be introduced. Chapter 1 doesn’t necessarily work as its own stand-alone movie – but, oddly, this is in part because many of its individual storylines do stand alone, not unlike a more traditionalist (yet also unresolved) version of the Coen Brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs . Of these various dangling threads, perhaps the most compelling comes late in the picture, and only has a few scenes to develop. It follows the journey of a wagon train on the Santa Fe trail, hoping to reach Horizon, a nascent frontier town in what’s now Arizona. The leader of this band is Matthew Van Weyden (Luke Wilson), who must deal with Juliette (Ella Hunt) and Hugh (Tom Payne), a wealthy British couple who don’t understand the shared labor that must support the wagon train. At one point, Juliette baths using drinking water – and two of Matthew’s men watch her, menacingly. When the couple complains to Matthew, he reluctantly and calmly confronts the two workers about the incident.

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That’s about all there is to this storyline, at least so far. What’s most notable about it – besides the various tensions that Costner and his co-writers are able to establish clearly and immediately, despite (or maybe because of) their lack of connection to the main story (family of another character is on this wagon train, but it’s not really the focus of these scenes) – is the return of Luke Wilson, in a somewhat more serious role than we’re accustomed to seeing him play.

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Of course, Wilson hasn’t really gone anywhere. If the second Horizon does release later this year – it was recently bumped from its planned mid-August date – it’ll be the tenth straight year that Wilson has appeared in at least two movies. Even more remarkable is how few of these you’ve probably seen. I’m a professional movie-watcher, and looking over Wilson’s filmography from the past decade is an exercise in remembering his supporting roles or cameos in movies I’d forgotten existed (the pretty good Brad’s Status ; the negligible Zombieland sequel ); worse movies I saw and would never have recalled him appearing in ( Look Both Ways ; The Goldfinch ); movies I was faintly aware of, but never saw ( Berlin, I Love You ; 12 Mighty Orphans ); and movies I’ve literally never heard of ( High Voltage ; Phil ; Bobbleheads: The Movie ).

It wasn’t always this way. Wilson’s early-2000s career had three seemingly Luke-rative (sorry) tracks: Appearing in the films of Wes Anderson, mostly notably his wonderful performance in The Royal Tenenbaums ; appearing in Frat Pack comedies like Old School and Anchorman ; and playing the low-key love interest to weaponized blondeness ( Charlie’s Angels ; Legally Blonde ). All seemingly nice work if you can get it. But without a persona as comically pushy (and easy to plug into buddy comedies) and his brother Owen, Luke receded into more supporting and character parts. He even appeared in a few westerns: the remake of 3:10 to Yuma , and Adam Sandler’s spoofy The Ridiculous 6 .

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Horizon returns him to that genre, and he turns out to be a better fit than ever. Though Wilson has done comedies and dramas alike, he may be too politely laconic to really work as a star of either. That quality was perfectly utilized in The Royal Tenenbaums , where athletic Richie attempted to affect a kind of deadpan stoicism (opposite his siblings more overtly emotional anguish and/or irritation) in the face of an aching love for his adopted sister. (Even more perfect: Owen Wilson in the same movie, cast as sort of a more gregarious and success-hungry alterna-Tenenbaum.) And it makes him a great fit for a western ensemble. His Matthew expresses no-nonsense annoyance with the lazy, entitled Juliette and Hugh, in their laziness, squandering of resources, and even their refusal to confront the two men they have a problem with. But he also has the square-shouldered decency to tell those men they ought to stop making Juliette feel uncomfortable, even when the men start making threats to him, too. In that scene, Wilson has to simultaneously play his reluctance in confronting the men, his assuredness that he’s not asking too much when advising them to keep their distance, his realization that the men really might pose a threat, and his refusal to fully capitulate to them. The middle-of-the-road plainspokenness that could be so easily mistaken for blandness in other roles, suddenly feels surprisingly, gratifyingly nuanced. For a few minutes, Luke Wilson feels like a movie star again!

That’s the chief pleasure of Horizon . It’s not that Costner has even packed the movie with a who’s-who of today’s best character actors. Buster Scruggs has a hipper ensemble featuring Coen regulars, major stars, and beloved That Guys. But Costner’s B-list has its own fun mixing 21st-century third leads (Wilson, Danny Huston, Sam Worthington) with former starlets who still have plenty of charisma (Sienna Miller, Jena Malone, Ella Hunt) and well-seasoned character actors (Michael Rooker, Dale Dickey, Will Patton), plus the Orphan from Orphan . (Also a mighty one, though not from the twelve.) The movie creates a new, pleasingly gristle-y stew of western players who haven’t been able to spend much time in this genre. It’ll be worth watching Chapter 2 just to see how they bump up against one another.

Jesse Hassenger ( @rockmarooned ) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com , too.

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