Slow West (2015)

As Good As It Gets

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Like the title suggests, the film has a slow pace as it moves on its quest through the western landscape. The plot sees an idealistic young man seeking out his love who fled to America to escape a crime. The young man is joined by an older, more cynical man - unaware that he has joined him to use the young man to lead him to the girl and her father in order to collect the bounty on their heads. It unfolds in an episodic manner within this overall sweep.The result is a film that is engaging in the most part, has plenty of good western tropes, and is short enough not to make the slow pace hard to take. That said, it also is meandering, doesn't amount to too much, and seems more interested in the episodic oddity of itself than it does making something cohesive. I think it will depend on the individual how that works; for me personally I felt the strengths of that outweighed the weaker aspects. The tone carried it for me, although I didn't think the ending worked particularly well as part of the total package. It is beautifully filmed, which is one of the western aspects it uses. Within the landscape the cast are generally good, but it is the work from Smit-McPhee and Fassbender that makes the majority of it work. When you are with them as a viewer, the film is enjoyable and carries itself. Not a film that really hits its mark, Slow West still offers a nicely engaging slow pace which plays out with good tone and pace, even if it doesn't feel like it comes together as a whole.

If people in the Wild West had killed each other at the rate shown in this film, it would still be wilderness.Appeals to those who think extreme violence is normal.The reality is that most people cooperate in a harsh environment. Violence was mostly personal. Criminals were rare.

Slow West is a kind of brand new werstern that takes place in a beautiful landscape without precedents. This is an epic journey of a naive hero who goes through dummy but lovely situations which could remind you of Alice's Wonderland because its psychedelia and its moments of intoxication. A bitter-ending amateur odyssey plenty of charming beauty so far away from the cliches of the genre. Is this iconoclastic and cool tragedy the last of the acid westerns?

In the Anti-Tradition of "Bone Tomahawk" (2015), first time Director MacLean makes No Bones about this being an Off-Kilter and Out of Step take on the Genre and delivers a Distinctively Different Tale of Traveling Men on a Torturous Journey.Michael Fassbender and His Star Power might get Fans to give this one a Look, and that's a Good Thing because this is a B-Picture that is an Off-Beat Treat for Seekers of the Unusual and Lovers of "Film as Art".Kodi Smit-McPhee (what a name) plays a Character that is Certainly Out of His Element in the Dirty and Unforgiving Setting, wearing a Suit and His Education quite well. A Determined Demeanor and Youthful Exuberance Propels Him on a Quest for 'His true Love".The Film is Full of Strange Occurrences and is Metaphorical, Surreal, and totally Engaging. Beautifully Shot and Despite its Differentness will most likely be Fulfilling for Western Movie Fans and those not Usually Drawn to the Genre.Violent, Poetic, and filled with much Black Humor, this is one that is worth Finding. It's a Foreign Film that Feels Foreign and that adds to its Dream-Like Ambiance. Don't be put off by the this Flowery Review and the Artsy Appeal and take a chance on a Little Movie that is a Big Deal and helps keep the Western Movie on the Map for Moderns.