Review of Slow West (2015) by Alfin N — 17 May 2015

In one of Slow West's self-reflective scenes, the young Scotsman, Jay, laments on his perceived assumption that his companion, Silas, is lonely - "The silent... lonely drifter" -, and that life offers more than just surviving, as the older of two retorts that there is also dying. The exchange is one of the many that make up writer-director John Maclean's Slow West involving life, death, and the juxtaposition between Kodi Smit-McPhee's optimist Jay, who believes in the innate goodness of man, hope and love, and that of Michael Fassbender's Silas, a cynical gunslinger that believes if given the chance, man will stab the other in the back for a quick dollar.

At times darkly comedic, the other times self-reflective, and with short bursts of violence, the directorial debut of Maclean's slow-burn Western isn't so much a deathly serious film the aforementioned anecdote paints, as it serves - to an extent - to deconstruct the genre's image of fearless gunslingers, primarily through Fassbender's Hans Solo-ish character Silas, and his relationship with the lovelorn 16-year-old Jay, whom Silas secretly uses for his own personal gain. Slow West isn't the next Unforgiven (1992), not even close, but as a familiar gunslinger drifting in a different outfit, it has other things going for it - the performance and chemistry of the two leads, and then some - despite not being a ruthless gun-toting genre piece, as much as Ben Mendelsohn's casting as the outlaw Payne - a typecast for violent roles, and all that - might indicate.

Like Westerns usually are, Slow West is almost always beautiful, delivering a picturesque depiction of America in 1870 - principal photography was done in New Zealand and Scotland -, with certain shots being reminiscent of old scenic paintings. And though Maclean presents the commentary on immigration, the systematic attempt at exterminating a land's aboriginal and native inhabitants - the Native Americans in Slow West's case -, the writer-director doesn't delve much into the topic as much as he possibly could have, as Maclean seems preoccupied with selling the film's idea that "Love is universal like death", with it ending exactly how it began with Jay's journey and outlook in life; pointlessly, yet with a semblance of hope, love and the innate goodness of man.