Slow West Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Slow West Blu-ray Movie Review

True Grit.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 7, 2015

Mattie Ross, the plucky heroine of Charles Portis’ epic True Grit, was an innocent young lass thrown into the (very) wild west without much of a safety net beyond the inimitable if curmudgeonly talents of one Rooster Cogburn. Another naïf under the putative protection of a crusty elder provides a somewhat unlikely tour through the untamed west in John Maclean’s inventive deconstructionist take on the western, Slow West, a film that does amble a bit now and then but which provides an overall rather brisk and breathless tale of supposedly unrequited love within the context of a region full of displaced people. In fact the focal character is himself part of this peculiar diaspora. Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a young Scottish lad who has made his way to America in search of Rose Ross (Caren Pistorius), a girl he claims is his true love. Almost immediately Jay finds himself in dire straits and is soon more or less happily under the wing of a no nonsense and extremely laconic bounty hunter named Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender). Silas acts as an ostensible guide and mentor to the extremely green Cavendish, but as Maclean (who also wrote the very sharp screenplay) makes clear early on, there are competing agendas at play and even a certain Rashômon-esque dialectic going on, at least with regard to Jay’s memories and anecdotes about his relationship with Rose, and what actually turns out to be the truth.

Jay is first seen making his way through a picturesque landscape on a horse, but soon things turn decidedly darker—literally, in fact, for it appears Jay is meandering through the wake of some sort of devastating fire. Some Native Americans are seen in disarray, and Jay is soon so swarmed by smoke and ash that both he and his horse are coated in a thick, grayish powder. It’s in this state that Jay almost actually runs into a wounded male Native American, who (also in shock) pauses for a moment before running away. Soon enough a trio of toughs wearing Union uniforms shows up in pursuit and quickly determine that Jay isn’t a “redskin.” Two of the guys chase off after the brave, and gunfire is soon heard. The lone straggler staying back with Jay soon finds a gun pointed at his head, though it isn’t Cavendish’s firearm. And so the skilled if sometimes surreptitious Silas is introduced.

Almost without speaking (while bearing a moniker, Silas is about as talkative as The Man with No Name), Silas dispatches the soldier, who it turns out is not in fact a soldier, or at least not anymore, as the film’s time frame is post-Civil War. Also without more than a word or two, Silas makes it clear that Jay is not going to survive more than a few more hours out in the wild if he doesn’t hitch his figurative wagon to Silas’ star, and a negotiation of sorts takes place, which pretty much amounts to Silas informing Jay as to how much it’s going to cost Jay for Silas to help keep him alive and putatively deliver him to the loving arms of Rose.

Playing out interstitially against this forward momentum are a number of flashbacks which slowly but surely detail some of the backstory of Jay and Rose, at least from Jay’s point of view. Jay obviously has very deep feelings for the girl, who for an initially mysterious reason has hightailed it out of Scotland with her father John (Rory McCann), coming to the so-called land of opportunity for equally enigmatic motives. If Maclean’s reach slightly exceeds his grasp here, with a couple of logical inconsistencies, the storytelling in and of itself is quite compelling and manages to simultaneously provide enough context while also informing the trek that Jay and Silas have undertaken.

A couple of unexpected twists keep the story just slightly askew. The first of these is a reveal that involves Rose and John’s current situation, which plays directly into Silas’ bounty hunting proclivities. But in a devastating sequence, a robbery gone awry suddenly saddles Silas and Jay with some unforeseen collateral damage. Also playing into the somewhat circuitous journey are a number of other odd characters, including another bounty hunter named Payne (Ben Mendelsohn). In fact, the entire film is filled with eccentric touches in terms of the odd folks who wander in and out of the story. Early on, Jay and Silas wander past a trio of Congolese men singing a song. Jay speaks to them in French, and delivers one of the film’s most indelible epigrams, “Love is universal, like death.” This veritable melting pot of individuals seems to suggest that the early west was a land made up entirely of outcasts.

Slow West offers a rather subversive comedic quality at times, despite the somewhat dark and at times unabashedly violent aspects it also presents. Maclean’s screenplay tends to wander out into the veritable wide open spaces at times, offering ruminations on the meaning of life (and love), while also detailing the Odd Couple-esque tendencies of its focal duo. The film manages to be both hyperbolically lunatic and grittily realistic, sometimes within the same sequence, a testament to the fine control Maclean maintains over the entire project.

Slow West Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Slow West is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.66:1. Shot digitally with the Arri Alexa, Slow West is an often ravishing experience in high definition, and the subliminal effect of that "old school" narrower aspect ratio doesn't tend to "fence in" any of the wide open vistas on display. Director of Photography Robbie Ryan (Philomena) captures some awe inspiring New Zealand locations that fill in surprisingly well for the American west. In fact the exteriors here (and virtually the entire film is out of doors) offer sumptuous depth of field and at times astounding levels of detail. There's a very slight yellow tint to some scenes, but detail and fine detail are not materially affected. When not graded, colors are very natural looking and pop with at times amazing vividness. There are occasional very slight issues with crush and lack of shadow detail in some of the nighttime sequences, but this is by and large a ravishing high definition presentation which should delight the film's fans.

Slow West Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Slow West features an at times subtle but very effective lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which offers excellent support for the film's dialogue, while also offering a very lifelike recreation of sounds out on the wild open prairie. When the film offers bursts of frenetic activity and elements like gunfire, dynamic range spikes commendably and the mix offers excellent prioritization. Fidelity is excellent throughout the film and there are no problems of any kind to warrant concern.

Slow West Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• On Strange Land: Making Slow West (1080p; 7:19) is the requisite EPK, albeit with decent interviews.


• Deleted Scenes:

  Hunters Cabin (1080p; 4:35)

  Am Bata Uaine Performed by Ali 'Beag" Macleod (1080p; 4:09)

Slow West Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Even those who tend not to like westerns all that much may be entranced by Slow West. The film is as eccentric as many of its characters, but rather unexpectedly things never tip over into self parody. Maclean, a musician (part of the late, lamented Beta Band) who didn't shirk from combining odd elements in his tunesmithing, turns out to be an extremely exciting scenarist and director, a kind of one man "Coen Brother," effortlessly managing huge variances in tone and offering a deliberately anachronistic (even iconoclastic) take on various western tropes. Add in impressive technical merits, and Slow West comes Highly recommended.