'Blu-ray or Bust' - SLOW WEST

'Blu-ray or Bust'

SLOW WEST (R, 2015, 84 minutes, A24/SEE-SAW FILMS)

I’m beginning to think there isn’t much that Michael Fassbender cannot do. Seriously, he’s starting to piss me off.

Maybe not him directly, but the reality he lives in. What other actor today looks right at home playing a morally ambiguous android (PROMETHEUS), a bad-boy mutant that can control metal with his awesome brain (the latest X-MEN films), and a mentally deteriorating singer with a big plastic head on his head for the entire film (FRANK)? He can go from action star to dramatic actor at the flip of a switch—there really is no one else like him in cinema today. Not with his range, not with his presence.

Now you can add “cowboy” to the mix.

SLOW WEST is nothing short of a visually stunning overture. Filmed in New Zealand, which seems to be the new “it” place for any film that requires majestic scenery, first-time director John Maclean’s tale of love and survival is beautifully shot and brilliantly acted. Each character you see is well written and thoroughly fleshed out. The story itself concerns young Jay Cavendish, fresh off the boat from Ireland and seeking out Rose, his lost love. He meets up with Silas (Fassbender), whose experience as a bodyguard/bad ass is the only protection the lovelorn Jay has in the wild west of America. Jay is played by Kodi Smit-McPhee; you’ll remember him as the shy, doomed-to-serve-a-vampire “Owen” from 2010’s creepy LET ME IN. Here he is thoughtful and naïve; he’s a teenage boy on an adventure, who brings a teapot and an unloaded gun with him.

Along the way, our heroes cross paths with a bounty hunter and his gang. Played with calm and deadly resolve, Ben Mendelsohn’s “Payne” isn’t so much a bad guy as he is a working man trying to survive The West. Yes, he wears a giant fur coat and could be considered extravagant, but he’s just like every other working Joe; he has a purpose, and he aims to do his job.

The cinematography by Robbie Ryan—who worked with Fassbender previously in FISH TANK—is lovely and haunting. He and Maclean not only know how to frame a scene, but they manage to capture the essence of damn near everything. It’s no surprise that Maclean got his start writing music for films; this film is like a composition of musical notes played out against the most majestic of natural scenes. And freaking Fassbender is in it.

Yep—you need this on Blu-ray. The only disappointing things about this is there is only one Special Feature (although the “making of” does give you a good bit of behind-the-scenes insight, you kinda want more), and the movie is too dang short. Don’t get me wrong; this is a great story, you just…kinda want more (said every girl I ever dated).

Would you be surprised to know that Fassbender’s next role is as Macbeth? And that in the next year or two he will be the titular killer in the big-screen adaptation of the “Assassin’s Creed” video game? And the best I can muster is writing reviews on my laptop…perhaps I should write the next one with an Irish accent…

Film Grade: A-

Special Features: C

Blu-ray Necessary: Most Definitely

T.S. Kummelman