Dances With Wolves Review- By Michael Carlisle

Title: Dances With Wolves
Year: 1990
Director: Kevin Costner
Country: US
Language: English

Kevin Costner's Directing debut won a total of seven Oscars at the 63rd Annual Academy Awards; Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and Best Original Score. Its main competition was the Martin Scorsese masterpiece Goodfellas, which frankly should have given Dances with Wolves the beating of a lifetime. Seriously, what were they thinking? Perhaps Scorsese's moral ambiguity left them cold?

Kevin Costner stars as Lt. John Dunbar, a man who is dubbed a hero after he accidentally leads Union troops to a victory during the Civil War. He requests a position on the western frontier, but finds it deserted. He soon finds out he is not alone. He befriends wolves and Indians, making him an intolerable aberration in the military.

Does anybody watch this film anymore? For a picture that is only 24 years old it has aged horribly, worse than some silent movies! It's a historical epic that is far too long and tedious to be considered entertaining. It's the typical white guilt movie that Hollywood loves to shove down our throats every year, except with a considerable lack of CGI. Why see this picture when we have Avatar? Or the considerably shorter Ferngully/Pocahontas/ The Help/The Last Samurai/Django Unchained?

It seems like in the 90's The Academy Awards had a stiffy for historical epics. Consider the fact that Dances With Wolves, Braveheart, Schindler's List, Forrest Gump, The English Patient, Titanic and Shakespeare in Love all won "Best Picture" that decade. Perhaps Wolves was a safe movie, that attempted to right some Hollywood wrongs. Perhaps it was an admittance that we had not treated Native Americans very kindly in our pictures. Then again, the attempt at dealing with race relations is painful to watch at times. In 2014 it feels condescending rather than honest. Its poor pacing, lack of structure & dismal conclusion left a bitter taste.

In conclusion, it's best to stay away from Dances With Wolves. Let it die and be forgotten by the masses. Watching it left me uninspired and unfulfilled. I felt like I had wasted a decent portion of my life on a picture that nobody cares, or should care about. If you're looking for a decent movie about race relations see either Lawrence of Arabia or 12 Years A Slave. Both are phenomenal. Piss on it! 1/5