The film to remember costner by - Dances With Wolves Reviews

It is a rare thing to have a movie running the length of 236 minutes without you realizing it?s been that long. Dances with Wolves, Kevin Costner?s directorial debut, is the only four-hour movie I?ve sat through in one sitting. The photography, the acting, the script, all of it is beguiling and engages you. The movie opens with a bang in the middle of the Civil War. Kevin Costner is Lt. John Dunbar, who was injured in the battlefield and is about to have his leg sawn off by a doctor (to prevent gangrene). Refusing to accept this, he rides into the field of battle to commit suicide and ends up becoming a hero. He is given a choice as to where he wants to go next and chooses an outpost on the frontier. Upon arrival, he ascertains that traitors have abandoned the fort; so Dunbar decides to clean up the place and await further orders. Meanwhile, the Sioux Indian tribe learns about him and decides that maybe they can make commerce. They are successful, and soon Dunbar learns to esteem those he once feared and analyzes their ways. He eventually falls in love with Stands With A Fist (Mary McDonnell), and learns the Lakota language. Of course he must make contact with the army again in the thrilling conclusion to the movie. Costner knew from the moment he read Michael Blake?s novel he had something. The movie is rich with locales, (primarily South Dakota), action, and dialogue. It spends quite awhile with Dunbar by himself in the fort, scenes that could easily be boring. However, Dunbar keeps a journal, which allows him to be constantly narrating in a way that works. They are his thoughts that others will read, not just thoughts we here. The movie also contains many thrilling scenes, most particularly the hunt of the buffalo. The sequence features everything, including 3,500 real buffalo, 50 extras, 7 cameras, and 25 fake buffalo. The scene is intense and, at the same time, really sad because it looks so real. It looks like Costner went out with his crew and released 3,500 buffalo, then rode by them and killed them (that is not what happened, however). The dialogue is captivating instead of dull. There is a scene in which Dunbar communicates with Kicking Bird (Graham Greene) through Stands With A Fist, an American who grew up with the Sioux. Her English is rusty, yet the things Costner and Kicking Bird say to each other are wonderfully entertaining. The movie is not without it flaws, sadly. The story surrounding Stands With A Fist was not satisfactory, as it only showed Natives massacring her parents and friends when she was a child. She ran away, and somehow befriended the Sioux tribe. Yet, wouldn?t this experience make her fear and hate the Natives? I know most other characters would vow revenge, yet this one seems to hate the American people (the Sioux have a pretty easy life). I also question how the film received it?s PG-13 rating. It seems the rating system has intensified in the last 15 years. This movie features extremely realistic blood, plus a gory scene in which buffalo are seen skinned and dead on the prairie. The movie features all the elements that would have gotten it an R, had it been released now. But, all that aside, Dances with Wolves is an epic Western, and the film that Kevin Costner will be remembered for the rest of his life. He will probably never make a movie as good as this, and there is no need to try. Everyone should see this (except small children).