Saw this yesterday with my Bride. A grand evocation of post Civil War Texas, Kansas and Missouri. A deep exploration of the meaning of home and family. Tom Hanks gives a superb performance as Jefferson Kyle Kidd, late Captain in the 3rd Texas Infantry, CSA, who earns a precarious living as a traveling news reader, regaling crowds who pay a dime a head to hear him read the news from newspapers he carries, with entertaining commentary. In his travels he encounters a little German girl, whose immigrant parents were slaughtered by a Kiowa warband, and now considers herself Kiowa, speaking only that language with bits and pieces of half-remembered German. Child actress Helena Zengel is stunningly good in the role. A German native, she apparently knew little English when the film was being made. This is a throwback to a time when films were meant to be entertaining with characters we grow to care about during the course of the tale. Highly recommended.
IIRC, the geographical portrayal of the regions involved left a bit to be desired (artistic license?), but quite a good movie nonetheless!