Hostile Territory
There’s a good heart that runs through “Hostile Territory,” but is it enough to make a good movie? When your writer-director is also the star of the film, that makes you think, “vanity project,” and I think there’s some truth to that in this film. But Brian Presley, this film’s star, writer and director, isn’t just focused on making the film about him, but on a struggle that a lot of parents deal with, and a story that is really interesting. When you’re casting your kids as your kids in the film, however, you start to wonder about the motivations behind it.
“Hostile Territory” takes place after the Civil War, and we focus in on the Calgrove family. Jack Calgrove (Presley) went off to fight for the Union army, but was long thought dead. When his wife died of Tuberculosis, it left his children orphaned. As the war is ending, they are being shipped off to Missouri, where their eldest sibling, Phil (Cooper North)- who also went off to fight- will meet them before venturing out West. The path west is still a dangerous one, and when it turns out that Jack is alive, and was just in a POW camp, he has an urgency to make sure his family is alive.
I’m not going to lie- one of the reasons I was so interested in “Hostile Territory” was the setting of the western terrain. And credit to Presley and cinematographer Mark David for making it look beautiful and, indeed, hostile. The vistas of the western landscape is wonderful to look at, although they do have a particular fondness for overhead shots that wear out their welcome when another choice might have made more sense for the tension of the scene. That being said, this was a lovely film to look at, even if the filmmakers couldn’t entirely hide the low-ish budget nature of it.
Orphan trains, which are what the Calgrove children are shipped off in, was something that was commonplace in the 19th Century, and especially after the Civil War. If Jack Calgrove hadn’t been alive in this film, and it was just about the struggle of these kids- and others they meet along the way- to put their lives together would be compelling; Presley definitely hit on an interesting subject for his film. I do think that the entirety of the narrative is compelling, however, especially since Jack is joined on his journey by Alice (Natalie Whittle), a former slave looking for her child, who was on the same train as Jack’s children. That does get to the fact that the resolution in this film feels too pat, but overall, Presley does it justice.
