Review of The Salvation (2014) by William S — 14 Feb 2015

This is a decent enough Danish-made spaghetti western. Nothing more and nothing less. It could easily have been a young Clint Eastwood in this movie. Instead the lead character is Mads Mikkelsen who makes a quite reasonable performance as far as I am concerned.

I have to say that it felt a bit funny when the characters spoke Danish in the first parts of the movie. It did add a bit of special touch, at least for me, to the movie though. I guess that people who do not understand Danish may be less thrilled about that though.

The movie itself is a fairly straightforward good guy versus bad guy revenge story. It is a good old-fashioned Western without any silly complicated plot and without trying to make any attempts to show the "real" west or put a social spin on it. It is clearly made to entertain those who like classical spaghetti westerns. Personally I find it nice that someone are still willing, and can get funding, to make those kind of movies. I liked both Mads Mikkelsen and Eva Green, although her role is mute, as well as Jeffery Dean Morgan as the bad guy.

Having said that, the movie falls a bit short of being a great spaghetti western. It never really manages to create that grim atmosphere around the lead character when he embarks on the road of revenge and I have to say that the end fight felt a bit meh.

Nevertheless this is a decent enough movie which should please most fans of classical old Western movies. I for one consider it a worthwhile addition to my collection.