Butcher’s Crossing (2022)

In Butcher’s Crossing, a haunting adaptation of John Edward Williams’ 1960 novel, the American frontier is stripped of its romanticism and exposed as a brutal arena of obsession, disillusionment, and destruction. The film follows Will Andrews (Fred Hechinger), a young Harvard dropout who ventures west in search of “truth” and authenticity. He joins a buffalo hunting expedition led by Miller (Nicolas Cage), a grizzled, single-minded frontiersman determined to find a legendary herd hidden in a remote valley.

The journey starts with high expectations and camaraderie but soon descends into madness. As Miller's obsession grows, so too does the physical and psychological toll on the crew. The group becomes trapped by snow in the valley for months, surrounded by piles of buffalo hides and consumed by illness, isolation, and despair. By the time they return, the market for buffalo hides has collapsed — rendering their suffering meaningless. Miller burns the hides in a fit of rage, and Will is left forever changed.

Cage delivers a chilling, controlled performance as Miller, capturing a man consumed by purpose to the point of self-destruction. Hechinger’s portrayal of Will is subtle but effective — a young man witnessing the collapse of everything he once idealized.

Butcher’s Crossing is not a film about triumph or adventure. It’s a meditation on the cost of ambition and the violent indifference of nature. The vast landscapes are beautiful yet bleak, echoing the emptiness at the heart of its characters. The pacing is slow, intentionally so, mirroring the suffocating passage of time in the mountains.

Set ten years after the events of the original, Reckoning sees Will Andrews return to the American frontier — now changed, both physically and politically. Conservation laws are being introduced, but illegal hunts persist. Will, now a quiet rancher, is pulled back into conflict when a new generation of hunters begins ravaging the remaining herds — led by a man claiming to have followed Miller’s lost journal.

Haunted by his past and determined to prevent history from repeating itself, Will sets out to stop the slaughter. Along the way, he’s joined by a Lakota tracker and a government official trying to preserve what’s left of the West. Together, they confront not just the hunters, but the ideology of dominance that led them there.

Where Butcher’s Crossing explored self-destruction, Reckoning asks whether redemption — personal or collective — is still possible. It shifts from survivalist horror to a quietly powerful character drama about legacy, grief, and the scars we leave on the land and each other.