(CNN)In some respects a timely rumination on healing and bridging divisions, "Hostiles" is a sturdy but unspectacular western, as old adversaries shed animosities through the shared ordeal of a cross-country trek. So Bale's Captain Joseph Blocker is given the reluctant assignment of escorting a Cheyenne war chief, Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi), and his family from New Mexico back to their tribal lands in Montana, where the "dying old man" wants to be buried.