Slow West
Director: John Maclean
Talent: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Ben Mendelsohn, Caren Pistorius
Release Date: 26th June 2015
Jay (Smit-McPhee) is a young Scot lost in the American west in search of his ladylove Rose (Pistorius). Jay is green and hires Silas, a gruff bounty hunter played by Michael Fassbender, to help with his search. As the two men journey they form an uneasy alliance.
Slow West, which is director John Maclean’s feature film debut, seems intent on showing us the worst of the genre. Everyone and everything is terrible in 1870s America. Maclean shoots a very handsome, and at times, thrilling western. However, it’s Maclean’s tendency to rely on a cheap, one-note bleakness time and time again that undoes all the good in the film. Slow West shows some promise but refuses to play to the strengths of its director, or indeed, the genre. Western or Anti-Western, it doesn’t matter, you won’t care. John Maclean will make sure of that.
Words: Luke Maxwell
