Slow West – Review by C.K. MacNamara

Writer/Director: John Maclean

Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Caren Pistorius, Ben Mendelsohn

Newly minted Director John Maclean’s debut film “Slow West” adopts an appropriate title ­ ‘Painfully slow and often unstructured’ would be more accurate but isn’t nearly as catchy.

An ‘artsy’ entry into a revitalised Western genre, Musician (once of the Beta Band) turned Director John Maclean has no qualms about letting his cinematic peas mix with his musical carrots, and no patch of the films prairie is without an instrument strumming outlaw or outcast, all of whom have no connection to the actual plot aside from the occasional quip about the plight of native Americans. Has everyone gone crazy? Is this an attempt at some kind of misplaced profoundness? Slow west indeed.

The story revolves around young Scottish Aristocrat Jay as he treks across America in search of his exiled love Rose, with the mandatory gunslinger companion so familiar to the genre in tow. What ensues is a quickfire succession of individually compelling scenes, but with little overarching plot.

Unnecessary flashbacks to Jay and Roses Disney­esque ‘romance’ are mismatched with gruesome shootouts and slapstick comedy – better she remain the McGuffin that frames the plot rather than muddying an already confused story.

Never sure where to place its footing, the film strays into pratfalls and outright surrealism, before demanding we suddenly take it for a gritty morality story all in the same breath. What sticks from the comedy is appealing, but a distinct indecisiveness keeps the film from dipping more than a toe into what should be its main appeal.

Overall, an original spin on an old formula, and certainly a strong debut from Maclean, but between the unstructured narrative, tacked on scenes that offer nothing to the plot, and an ending that leaves too much to be desired, the film falls flat as a clutter of disjointed, albeit interesting individual scenes.