A modern take on the western, slight in plot but nicely told, SLOW WEST is a very good debut from Director John MacLean.
Young Englishman Jay Cavendish has come to America to follow and find Rose Ross, the young woman he thinks his is true love.
Jay soon finds himself in the company of rugged cowboy Silas Selleck, who is tracking Rose and her father for a very different reason tied to a bounty on their heads.
Along the way, a bounty hunter named Payne, with plenty of determination and the wildest fur coat in the west joins the quest for Rose.
Jay is played by Jodi Smit-McPhee (Let Me In, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) in a solid performance. Jay is a very young man who has no idea just how far in over his head love has lead him.
The dependably great Michael Fassbender plays Silas as a man whose loyalties we pondered through most of the fim.
With the beautiful scenery of New Zealand filling in for the American west, the film features amazing photography of empty, stunning land ready for the taking.
The solitary home in which the Ross's sit in the middle of a vast territory is a great visual location for the bloody and violent showdown, where all of our characters collide.
This isn't a typical Western, but it's well done, serving up a very UN-glamorized view of the wild west. At 84 minutes long, it's less a bloated epic and more a 19th century character study.
SLOW WEST gently rides it's way to a B-.
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