Kevin Costner stars as Lt John Dunbar, a Union soldier who goes on a
suicidal ride after a leg injury that leads the doctors to want to
amputate. Accidentally, he finds himself leading the troops to victory
on the battlefield against the Confederates. As a reward, he is given
the medical care he needs and allowed to choose his next posting. He
opts to serve on the Western Frontier, which he wants to see before it
disappears. Reporting to his new deserted post, he does not realise
that the last two men who know where he is are now dead, and no relief
is coming.
Alone in the middle of nowhere, with just his horse
and a wild wolf for company, Dunbar starts putting his post in order
when he encounters the native Lakota Sioux for the first time - they
persist in trying to take his horse, with comic results. Soon he is
trying to communicate, attempting to make friends with Kicking Bird and the taciturn Wind in His Hair . He
saves the life of a stolen white woman living with the Sioux called
Stands With a Fist, who can speak a little English,
and who eventually starts to translate his speech for the Sioux.
Increasingly, Dunbar spends more time away from his post, learning
about the life of his new friends, and falling in love with Stands With
a Fist. However, as an Indian sympathiser his fellow soldiers view him
as a traitor and will stop at nothing to track him down.This is
a film of contrasts - the damaging influences of white settlement
against the beauty of the landscape, the battle between the white abuse
of natural resources and the Sioux living within them, the extreme
violence of war against the gentleness of Sioux love and family, and the constrained life of Dunbar the soldier
against the emotional freedom he gains as he becomes Dances with
Wolves. Costner is outstanding as the soldier turned Indian,