Brig. Gen. George Crook (Gene Hackman) leads a war on the Chiricahua to bring them to their reservation. Geronimo (Wes Studi) agrees to go in peace. Lt. Britton Davis (Matt Damon) is new from Texas. He accompanies Lt. Charles Gatewood (Jason Patric) to go bring Geronimo in. Gatewood befriends Geronimo. Al Sieber (Robert Duvall) is a scout with a proper hatred and respect for the enemy Apache. The army tries to stop a medicine man dancing and a violent incident results. Geronimo escapes the reservation with a group of Apache. That's when the Geronimo Campaign begins.It's a historical drama without the overdramatization that normally accompanies westerns. There are no easy villains in this. The circumstances keep conspiring to force the groups to clash. There are great actors in this. Most impressive is Wes Studi. His presence makes Geronimo come alive.

If you like Westerns, 1993's "Geronimo: An American Legend" is worth checking out; it's just not as good as you would expect from such an exemplary cast & crew.With the likes of Walter Hill, John Milius, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, Jason Patric, Wes Studi and Matt Damon you'd expect greatness on the level of "Last of the Mohicans," "Dances with Wolves" or even "Wyatt Earp," instead it's merely watchable.This is likely because, more than anything else, it comes across as a humdrum history lesson. At the same time, it's not bad. So, if you're a fan of Westerns, I encourage you to add it too your collection. Just don't expect anything outstanding.The film runs 115 minutes and was shot mostly in Southern Utah, but also Old Tucson, Arizona.GRADE: C+

"I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves." – John Wayne (interview) "Two thousand years of history, could not be wiped away so easily." – Bob Marley "The Indians must conform to "the white man's ways," peaceably if they will, forcibly if they must. They must adjust themselves to their environment, and conform their mode of living substantially to our civilization. This civilization may not be the best possible, but it is the best the Indians can get. They cannot escape it, and must either conform to it or be crushed by it. The tribal relations should be broken up, socialism destroyed, and the family and the autonomy of the individual substituted." - Commissioner Thomas MorganAfter demonizing Native American Indians for several decades, Hollywood suddenly began releasing a slew of revisionist westerns in the late 60s and early 70s. Enter films like "Buffalo Bill", "Ulzana's Raid", "A Man Called Horse" and "Soldier Blue", all of which forced their audiences to empathise with subjugated natives whilst portraying the "white man" as genocidal brutes bent on conquest. Even John Ford, one-time king of racist caricatures, tried to make amends with "Cheyenne Autumn", his apology for past pictures.Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, French, Italian and British film-makers were treading similar ground. With the dismantling of the British Empire, British directors began releasing a spread of anti Colonial war films, whilst European directors like Gavras, Wertmuller and Pontecorvo protested the treatment of Algerians and the aggressions of the French Empire.With the battle for history won, films in the early 90s then began to treat this subject in a much more elegiac fashion. Films like "Dances With Wolves", "Thunderheart, "Squanto", "Geronimo" and "The Last of the Mohicans" serve up romantic myths, treating Native Americans with a mixture of reverence, nostalgia and melancholy.Released at the end of this wave, Walter Hill's "Geronimo" focuses on the "Geronimo Campaign", a period of history between 1885 and 1886 in which five thousand US cavalry men attempted to hunt and kill a group of Apache Indians. As is typical of these films, the US Cavalry is portrayed as an aggressive invader whilst the Indians are treated as a band of unfairly persecuted freedom fighters. With the Apaches placed in reservations (ie, concentration camps), caged in trains like Holocaust victims and betrayed by fellow Indians seduced by the false promises of white men, the film is implicitly critical of a certain brand of Colonialism.It's all familiar stuff, very superficially drawn, but the film nevertheless differentiates itself from revisionist westerns in several ways. It revokes the cliché of having an enlightened white man shedding his white ways and fighting for the red skins, and instead adopts a tone of total futility. Here, the battle is already lost, the natives already defeated, and our white hero has long resigned to the horrors of his own actions. Thus, rather than having a white man joining forces with the natives and taking up arms with them against the invaders - your typical "Avatar" narrative - we have a white man attempting to reason with natives such that they accept their own loss. Such that they come to terms with their defeat and stop wasting the lives of their few remaining tribesmen in a futile fight against a technologically and numerically superior foe. Because of this stance, the film plays less like a drama or action fantasy, than a kind of detached tragedy. The weight of a hundred years of history has already determined the outcome of the film, the typical Hollywood fantasies (the flights of fancy where audiences woop with joy as the Indians rebel) rejected entirely. The battle is over. Victory is impossible. History is defeat. This may make for less satisfying viewing, but it gets under your skin.Another bold choice is the resignation of the white officer at the end of the film. Whilst most films in this genre actualise the white man's rage by having him join forces with the enemy and fight against his homeland, the truth is, "doing nothing" is often a much braver act. Violence is not necessarily action. Social structures are run by action, and, contrary to popular opinion, it is violence that makes sure things stay the way they are. Sometimes the truly violent act is to do nothing, a radical refusal often undermining the status quo. Sometimes the only authentic stance to take in dark times is to do nothing, to refuse all commitment (see Renoir's "The Devil Probably"). 7.9/10 - Though directed by Walter Hill, screenwriter John Milius is the real auteur of this picture. Milius' lug-headed politics and passions ooze from every scene, whilst director Walter Hill is simply content to use the tale as an excuse to indulge in his love for his mentors, Peckinpah and Siegel. The film is perhaps better than "Dances With Wolves", but loses points for some middlebrow sermonising. And though critical of US Calvary men and policy makers, the film is nevertheless heavily whitewashed, too fearful to deal with some of the darker truths which occurred during the era. See "Europa Europa".

I write about the Apache in the Desert Exposure newspaper, and I hike Apacheria in New Mexico. While there are many other Native American groups in both AZ and NM, the Jicarilla, Mescalero, and Eastern Chiricahua are the dominant of the Apacheans. This a film represented a tremendous opportunity, with such a fine actor as Wes Studi, to allow the story to be told through Geronimo's eyes. It missed that chance. Studi gives an excellent performance as Geronimo. He certainly best resembles Geronimo among Native actors that I can think of. Geronimo was likely a sociopath. He killed remorselessly. He was a gas bag,impressed with himself. He was, the most vigilant of all the Apache. Within New Mexico, just west of the Rio Grande, and east of the Arizona line, we had: Chihuahua; Geronimo; Loco; Lozen (the woman warrior); Mangas Coloradas; Nana; Victorio; Ulzana (Jolsany). The country around Moab isn't New Mexico. Moab represented a view of the West Hollywood wanted to perpetuate. Also,Moab had amenities that no southern New Mexican towns would have offered. Silver City, where I am, has hosted most recently, "North Country." There is plenty of desert, but also, high mountains, to given the most realistic view of where Geronimo was from & where he fought, since he was born & raised in the Gila Wilderness, north of Silver City.He mostly fought the latter years in the Chiricahuas, & in Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexico. Studi would have given Geronimo the understanding the man had with having lost his entire family to the Mexicans & the intense hatred he had for them from then on. Geronimo isn't universally loved on the Mescalero & Ft. Sill Reservations, because many Chiricahua Apachewanted to give up the struggle before he did.Gene Hackman plays a superb Gen. Crook, as a no-nonsense general. He'd chased many less truculent Apaches, and put them on reservations. He was a born cavalryman, was unassuming, & was the first to understand that only Apache could find other Apache. Until then, and afterwards, when Gen. Nelson Miles took command of the campaign against Geronimo, failed to find him, and resorted to using Lt. Charles Gatewood and two principle Apaches (Martine and Kayetah), did he find Geronimo.Gatewood was a very decent man. He was respected by the Apache, since he'd been on reservation with them, & also, been in the Victorio Campaigns, among others. He was so trusted by them that Geronimo asked him, @ Canyon Embudos, in Chihuahua, in March, 1886, "What would you do?"("Would you surrender?"). Gatewood told them he would.Britton (Braa ton) Davis (played by Matt Damon), by the 1885-1886 period, was no longer centrally involved in the final chase. He was at Ft. Apache when Geronimo left. Al Sieber, played by Robert Duval, was so drunk that when Britton Davis received word that the Apaches were making "tizwin" (tiz ween), acquivalent to 3.2 beer, and asked for advice, Sieber told him to not worry about it.Geronimo and Sieber both were negatively affected by alcohol. Geronimo, died on a drunk, in 1909, @ Ft. Sill, OK. He made many bad choices because of booze. Sieber may have made more than his share, too. As far as the characters they played, I think Studi, Hackman, the guy who plays Nelson Miles, Damon, Patric, and Duvall are all solid. Patric is weakest as Gatewood. Gatewood was tall, thin,stoic, and taciturn. He was very down to earth, and for some reason, the affected southern drawl displayed by Patric seemed too affected.Gatewood, Martine and Kayitah were the ones who went in to find Geronimo. They were the last to surrender because as a group, they were hypervigilent and the toughest the Apache had.Walking and Hiking Apacheria, in temperatures up to 106º just this week, I can attest to the incredible physical prowess the Apache had. I hike with lots of gear, often alone. They lived, rode and walked with a minimum amount of gear, and were confidently self-reliant in this country. To think of even running (as they did) 75 miles, or break it down, to deduct for exaggeration, 25 miles, in that heat, in this country, where one small cañon can be incredibly rugged, steep, full of cacti, severe heights, cliffs, all kinds of problems with rattlesnakes, scorpions, tarantulas, spiders, no water to speak of ... to even go 25 miles is incredible to grasp, once you try it.They were the Spartans of Native Americans.Having been many places where they were, I can say: I love NM enough to understand why they didn't want to leave. To roam alone in this country is an awesome experience. If someone had given Wes Studi some opportunity to display even a few minutes of that aloneness in a vast emptiness, they might have gotten a great performance.This is revisionist history, for sure.But, the film's worth watching more than once.I've become far too involved with the details, now, to tolerate the entire film being shot in Utah. It's too bad Millius, Hill, etc., didn't allow the narrative to be from Geronimo's point of view, rather than Davis'. Put a protractor point on Silver City, NM, scale the device to measure out 150 miles, & draw a circle, you'll see the country where the last couple of years of the Geronimo Wars were fought. Fly over it at 1000 feet, you can grasp how rugged the country is, and how it was such a part of the entire "Legend," of Geronimo.