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Slow West (2015)

Slow West was my favorite narrative film of the Sundance Film Festival.

It's a Western, directed by an Englishman and filmed in New Zealand to stand in for the American West of the late 19th century. Of course, the taciturn Michael Fassbender is perfect to play Silas, a loner bounty hunter in the old West, He has the presence to express much while saying nothing, like the perfect Western hero.

Kodi Smit-McPhee (who I saw in the futuristic set Western Young Ones at last years Sundance fest) plays Jay, a young nobleman on the search for his lost love. He is fresh off the boat from Scotland, and Silas rescues him , and then offers his services as protector for a steep fee.

The movie moves at a slow pace as they travel together, punctuated with startling action scenes -- all the more startling coming suddenly out of the slow quiet we have been lulled into,

Along their journey, they run into the gang of another bounty hunter, played by Ben Mendelsohn in an outrageous big bearskin coat,. (The actor wore the very coat to the premiere). We find out that there is a huge bounty on the girl that Jay is infatuated with, and her father, and there are many bounty hunters looking for the pair. Silas is among them, although he hides that fact from young Jay.

What I loved about Slow West is how it took the audiences expectations of what happens in the Western genre, and turned them on their head. The final climax shoot out scene, which we all see coming, goes nothing like what I expected, and I loved the movie for it. I won't spoil it by listing in detail what surprised me, but I especially loved that Rose (the object of Jay's infatuation) was quite simply kick ass and no damsel in distress.

While you could complain that Slow West was too slow in parts, I felt like it just added to the impact of the action scenes and the New Zealand scenery was gorgeously shot. It's hard to believe that this is the debut feature of director/writer John Maclean. It well deserved the World Cinema Dramatic Jury prize it won at Sundance.