Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Hell on Wheels: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Deadwood or dead weight?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 12, 2012

The first several years of my life were spent in Salt Lake City, and one of the “big” field trips public school students look forward to in probably the third or fourth grade is a journey north from Salt Lake for about an hour and a half or so (on slow moving school buses) to a nondescript place known as Promontory, an unassuming berg with nothing much to recommend it other than its status as the place where the “Golden Spike” was pounded into steel, joining together the Union Pacific with Central Pacific to create the long dreamt of Transcontinental Railroad. The train has been a regular part of my life since I was a little kid. My maternal grandfather was a conductor for the Union Pacific and so we regularly rode the rails when I was a child, and since I loved that mode of travel, I wanted to recreate the experience for my own boys when they came along. We have taken several cross country trips on Amtrak, as well as one or two up and down the west coast. If the train riding experience isn’t quite as “glamorous” as the rosy memories from childhood might seem to suggest, it’s still a wonderful way to see the country and it almost forces some “together time” for families, as there’s precious little to do other than watch the scenery and talk. The clickety clack of train travel may tend to put some travelers in something akin to a beta state, a state probably more conducive to meditation than wondering about how this giant rail project was ever built in the first place. Hell on Wheels is just that story, a rollicking if sometimes fairly disturbing account mixing fictional and real historical characters into a chuck wagon stew that will probably remind more than a few of Deadwood, in both style and substance.

In the wake of the Civil War, former Confederate soldier Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount) is on a hunt for the Union soldiers who massacred his wife and son in the closing days of the conflict. That gets the series off to a literal bang in a sequence taking place in a church confessional, instantly communicating to the audience that not much is going to be held sacred here. Bohannon is a desperate, half dead soul himself, motivated only by revenge and seemingly without much else left in his cold eyes. His hunt for the few remaining soldiers he’s on the hunt for takes him west to where the Union Pacific was just beginning its westward trek to forge a new link across the still largely unsettled American landscape.

Bohannon’s obvious ruthlessness recommends him to the foreman of the largely freed slave crew pounding the rails into the land, and Bohannon is almost instantly made the so-called Walking Boss of the crew. That brings him into almost immediate conflict with an angry former slave named Elam (Common), and in fact the shifting relationship between Bohannon and Elam, which swings from outright hatred to grudging admiration to several shades in between, is a major element of Hell on Wheels’ first season. Also in the mix is real life character Thomas Durant (Colm Meaney), a Union Pacific executive whose shady business tactics may have helped build the Transcontinental Railroad, but also helped contributed to a stock market fiasco as well as several other unseemly events.

The rest of the cast of Hell on Wheels is rather large and unruly, and includes Lily (Dominique McElligott), the widow of a surveyor who finds herself torn between Durant and Bohannon; Sean (Ben Esler) and Mickey (Phil Burke) McGinness, two Irish immigrant siblings who are out to make their fortune in the west; Eva (Robin McLeavy), a “working girl” who forges an unlikely (and due to the times scandalous) affair with Elam; and Joseph Black Moon (Eddie Spears), a westernized Cheyenne who finds himself waffling between furthering his Christianization or returning to his Native American ways. Probably the most memorable character in the first season doesn’t show up for an episode or two, but then becomes unforgettable. That is The Swede (Christopher Heyerdahl), a vicious (and really weird looking) Norwegian (yes, Norwegian, despite his nickname) who becomes Durant’s head of security and repeatedly clashes with Bohannon.

Hell on Wheels is one of those supposedly “new” westerns that exults in a darker ambience, with a slew of tormented characters interacting in a desperate and wild landscape. It’s to the series credit, however, that this first season works remarkably well almost all of the time. Bohannon is a fascinating character, one who is trying to open himself up to something beyond rote vengeance, but who repeatedly falls back into an almost atavistic killing mode when presented with the opportunity. Mount is an appealing presence, able to convey both Bohannon’s viciousness as well as his innate sense of morality, despite his less than moral behavior. Meaney has a field day with the duplicitous Durant, crafting a kind of smarmy but also charming character that perfectly captures both the glitter and decay of a newly gilded age rising from the ashes of a horrible calamity. The rest of the large cast is also excellent, and the writing allows almost all of these disparate characters their own moment in the sun (and/or the mud, considering how grimy the nascent town of Hell on Wheels is).

The series careens toward an expectedly violent finale, where The Swede gets a major comeuppance after several episodes of his nefarious and despicable activities, but also where Bohannon faces capture by Union marshals while also coming maddeningly close to a man he believes is the last remaining soldier who was involved in his family’s death. The denouement of that particular struggle poses a somewhat larger question for Hell on Wheels’ subsequent seasons: what’s going to happen if and when Bohannon finally wreaks his revenge on those he feels responsible for his personal trauma? Can a character like Bohannon, whose sole purpose seems to be exacting his own brand of frontier justice, ever move on, like a steaming locomotive?

Hell on Wheels: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Hell on Wheels: The Complete First Season is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Entertainment One with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is a really beautifully crisp and clear high definition presentation which very impressively captures the look and feel of the mid 19th century American Midwest. Some of the series is intentionally desaturated, looking almost like an old Daguerreotype. Some of the establishing shots of various locales are almost gasp inducing, with gorgeous fields of wildflowers or wheat, or rough hewn structures being erected against a cloud strewn backdrop. Aside from the intentionally desaturated elements, colors are very strong and beautifully vivid, and fine detail is quite impressive throughout the series. There are some very occasional artifacting issues with regard to some of the closeknit patterns on some of the costumes, leading to some minor moiré or aliasing at times. Otherwise, this is a stellar presentation that should delight videophiles.

Hell on Wheels: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Hell on Wheels: The Complete First Season has two 5.1 mixes on tap, a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix and an accompanying standard lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is often astoundingly effective, with consistent attention paid to surround activity and some very nice use of discrete channelization. The first sequence in the church confessional lets us know right off the bat that the series will not skimp on LFE, and the series is awash in a lot of very boisterous low end sound effects. Dialogue is cleanly presented, and the kind of jangly, acoustic music score also fills the surrounds and provides some nice (if strangely contemporary sounding) counterpoint to the imagery. Fidelity is top notch throughout the series and dynamic range is also wide and fulsome.

Hell on Wheels: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Recreating the Past: The Making of Hell on Wheels (1080i; 16:54) features quite a few behind the scenes crew, like Director – Executive Producer David Von Ancken and Production Designer John Blackie, talking about what they wanted to achieve with this series. There's some great footage of the sets being built as well as some of the location shooting, some of which looks pretty muddy. It's nice to have the actual crew interviewed at length here rather than the traditional puff piece that focuses solely on the cast congratulating each other for giving such great performances.


• Crashing a Train: From Concept to Camera (1080i; 3:25) shows the planning and execution of one of the first season's big set pieces.


• Making of Featurettes (1080i; 33:26) offers seven short pieces, including "About Hell on Wheels", "The Guns", "The Wardrobe", "The Meaning of the Railroad", "Building the Train", "Locations and Sets", and "Dirty Medicine".


• Character Featurettes (1080i; 12:56) includes portraits of Cullen Bohannon, Elam Ferguson, Thomas Durant, Lily Bell, The McGinnes Brothers, Pawnee Killer and Joseph Black Moon.


• Episode Featurettes (1080i; 52:41) gives some background on the following episodes: Pilot; Immoral Mathematics; A New Birth of Freedom; Jamais Je ne T'Oublierai; Bread and Circuses; Pride, Pomp and Circumstance; Revelations; Derailed; Timshel; and God of Chaos.


• Behind the Scenes Footage (1080i; 24:36)


• Trailer (1080i; 1:28)

Hell on Wheels: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Hell on Wheels has already been renewed for a second season, and that season is probably going to tell the tale of whether Bohannon will be a riveting enough character to provide focal interest once the revenge scenario is played out. The indication thus far is that he will be, and the good news is there is a veritable glut of other characters here, all of whom will allow the writers to open up the series and explore other storylines. This is a very impressively mounted series, and the writing in the first season is sharp and well crafted. This Blu-ray set provides excellent video and audio and comes with quite a few appealing supplements. Highly recommended.