Geronimo: An American Legend, directed by Walter Hill in 1993. The cast for Geronimo, the great warrior of Chiricahua was Wesley Studi who is a renowned Native American actor, and the story of the movie is about the Chiricahua people from the Apache tribe and its military leader and as well as a medicine man Geronimo, who was leading his people fighting against the reservation policy and resistance against the American government’s cruelty and lies. After years of fighting, Geronimo finally surrendered to the United States Army in 1886, he was the last Native American tribe leader to surrender to the US government, which makes this story even more significant as it was the end of the 19th century and the idea of no more“frontier” has been brought up by scholars.
In the film, the American army kept saying to the Apache people, “You are under the protection of the United States Army” which I find ironic because it was them who were killing all those Native Americans in the name of the protection. When General Crook tried to negotiate peace deals with Geronimo, they agreed to live on the reservation in the idea that they would be living in peace. Still, in reality, they were forbidden to go outside the reservation, and they weren’t allowed to drink because the American government thought they couldn’t handle alcohol, they were given a small amount of the land and most of it was not fertile enough to sustain themselves as a farmer. Chiricahua people depended on the allotment from the government each month to survive, and when a medicine man named the Dreamer came to tell the story that all the White-eye would die and that their ancestors would live again, people started to gather and dance, and pray for a future, the US Army came to stop them, and killed the dreamer in cold blood.
Once again, the leader of the Chiricahua band, Geronimo led people to fight back and fled the reservation. They started to raid mines and settlements that were built on Apache lands. Throughout the movie, there were many conversations that addressed issues that really got me and made me think more, and one of the scenes was when Geronimo talked to the miners, he asked them “There is so much land, why can’t we share?” I think it really addresses more than just the conflicts between the two cultures. It revealed to us how Americans thought that the Native Americans didn’t deserve the land, because they never built anything on the land. This scene not only showed us how Americans at the time, took all the lands from the Apache but also believed that they were the ones who deserved to own those lands, the greed and ego people had were well presented in this movie.
Overall, the movie did a good job of presenting Native American culture and history of the United States. The movie talked about the promises that were made to Native Americans, those “protections” and “helps” for Native Americans to get a better life. The lieutenant kept questioning “Will they keep this deal and be honest?”
A few things that I didn’t like about the movie were that one, the movie claimed this conflict as a war. A war with Native Americans justified the killing of children and women, people who were not armed nor they did do anything to harm people. Not only the US government was doing this, but people who were civilians were encouraged to kill Native Americans for bounties. This horrible act has caused so many tragedies, not only from the bounty hunters, but also the government which not only was actively killing Native Americans but also sent out bounties to encourage people to help them. However, in the movie, it was not shown. The only people who were killing the civilians were bounty hunters from Taxes and one of the officers from the Army died trying to help an Apache. Although the movie addressed a lot of the problematic past, it didn’t directly point out who is to blame for the tragedies. You can hear the “order from the president of the United States, ” and “the US government,” but who gave the order to kill Native Americans? Who made the decision to break the treaties and promises with tribbles over and over? The entire movie used a group of officers who had empathy and a good heart toward the Native Americans and their bonds with Geronimo to tell a story that is sad and horrific, it may have addressed some of the issues from the time period, but it definitely avoided telling its audience who did this and how they did it.
Overall, I can only give this film a three and a half stars, as it successfully showed us a piece of what the US government did to Native people, but it failed to tell us the hard truth people needed to hear.
I appreciated how thorough a synopsis you gave. The story, as you described it, seems to put a lot of emphasis on morality and doing what is right, which I would say is a very commendable thing to focus a movie on. I personally really enjoy films that put an emphasis on these types of things, and, overall, I’d say that your review has made me want to watch Geronimo.