Geronimo: An American Legend

A vibrantly photographed dud. After surrendering to an idealistic U.S. Army lieutenant (Jason Patric), Geronimo: An American Legend (Wes Studi) leads his fellow Apache off their reservation and into a series of violent skirmishes. Nice as it is to see Native Americans as the good guys, the film fails to do the greater honor of portraying them as flesh-and-blood characters. Studi, who just about melted the screen with his hostile glower in Last of the Mohicans, now seems to be posing for a wooden nickel. The gun battles are kinesthetic bloodbaths, staged with director Walter Hill’s usual neo-Peckinpah flair, but each one is followed by 20 minutes of monosyllabic inertia. We might as well be watching a series of Old West View-Master slides. D+