Review of Bone Tomahawk (2015) by Mark M — 23 Dec 2015

In the third act of Bone Tomahawk, several characters are ambushed after a quiet trek through the desert, only to then witness the butcher of one of their peers by several cannibals. The rapid escalation of events, which leads to this year's most graphic fictional death sequence on screen, proves to be a hallmark of writer-director S. Craig Zahler's feature length directorial debut; a recurring style that Zahler adeptly handles throughout Bone Tomahawk. Starring an impressive cast led by Kurt Russell - with an upcoming role in Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight -, Bone Tomahawk surprises in more ways than one despite being a small indie Western.

Set on the American frontier, Zahler pits cowboys against man-eating distant cousins of Native Americans after several criminals desecrate their hallowed burial grounds, and unwittingly draw the ashen-white cannibals to the town of Bright Hope. In the words of Bone Tomahawk's only, actual Native American character, "They're not my kind; they are a spoiled bloodline of inbred animals, who rape and eat their own mothers," the stakes rightfully run high in Zahler's methodological, slow-burn battle of gunpowder and blunt weapons made out of bone.

However, unlike Slow West, the only other good Western film released this year (so far), Bone Tomahawk is too simplistic for its own good despite the passable dry humour and the lengths it goes to when it comes to violence. Neither the character development, cinematography, nor story proves to be exciting enough to elevate itself from other above average Westerns, and though one could argue that the genre has never truly been about narrative innovation, Bone Tomahawk shouldn't be given a pass for its flaws even if it does mostly everything else well.