In a recent interview with The Guardian newspaper, actor Christian Bale said: “I was asked to do a romantic comedy. I thought they’d lost their minds!”

Well, the idea of Bale ever doing a romantic comedy – or any comedy, really – is an idea that is certainly laughable.

In his 30-odd year career, the actor has taken on roles that, for the most part, have been of a dark, brooding and often disturbing, intensity. Starting with, it can be argued, his film debut aged 13 in Empire of the Sun (1987) as a young boy who becomes a prisoner of war in a Japanese internment camp, during World War II. The trend continues through the likes of American Psycho (2000)  The Machinist (2004) and his remarkable stint as Batman, to name but a few roles in his remarkable career.

The dark, brooding, volatile and often murderous intensity is present and correct in Bale’s latest incarnation.  We are in 1892, the waning years of the American- Indian wars, with most of the indigenous tribes defeated and the frontier largely gone.

Bale plays legendary Cavalry Captain Joseph Blocker who extremely reluctantly – and after being threatened with a court martial that would sully his otherwise unblemished career – agrees to escort Yellow Hawk, a Cheyenne war chief (played by Wes Studi) and his family back to tribal lands.

It is indeed a repulsive task for the former war hero. Not only is he openly racist – he wears his disdain for Native Americans almost with pride – he is all too aware that his mission is also part publicity stunt for the American authorities – Yellow Hawk is dying and the authorities want to underscore their ‘humaneness’ in victory by returning him to his home.

Blocker’s objections notwithstanding, he, his men and Yellow Hawk and his family set off on their 1,000-mile journey. A day or two into their expedition, the group find Rosalee Quaid (Rosamund Pike), who has witnessed (as do we) the unbelievably horrific massacre of her husband and three children by a band of Comanches.

A terrific Western, a laudable entry in a genre itself in decline

The traumatised woman is persuaded by an uncharacteristically sympathetic Blocker to join them. It is thus quite a disparate group of travellers that move across the unforgiving landscape from Fort Berringer, an isolated Army outpost in New Mexico, to the grasslands of Montana.

And, throughout their journey, this victorious, arrogant white man, a traumatised, broken woman and a much-reviled Native American find that they have much in common – not least war, violence and loss.

Will they find it in themselves to transform the hatred and mistrust they have towards one another into something more humane?

Hostiles boasts stunning visuals, and the production design itself an integral tool in the telling of the elegiac tale of the declining American Frontier. It is a terrific Western, a laudable entry in a genre itself in decline. It is directed by Scott Cooper, who read the manuscript by the late screenwriter Donald Stewart.

Cooper always wanted to make a Western and he made Hostiles with a view to underscoring the relevance of the story today, 125 years later, with what’s currently happening in the US with respect to race and culture. The horrific treatment meted out to the Native Americans is reflected in society’s current treatment of minorities of all stripes.

Having previously worked with Bale, a good friend, in 2013’s Out of the Furnace, Cooper wrote the script specifically for the actor.

Blocker is a product of his time, a hardened war veteran unwilling to forgive or forget the violence he has experienced and smouldering in rage at the task that has been forced upon him.

Veteran Cherokee actor Studi injects much gravitas into the role of the war chief in the twilight of his life. He remains a dignified presence, despite his humiliation at the hand of his captors.  Pike’s Rosalee is very much the heart of the movie – not because she is a woman but because it is through her story and suffering that the bitter adversaries start to overcome their prejudices and bring their darkened souls into the light.

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