Please note: This was screened in Feb 2016
Scottish director John Maclean’s gloriously off-kilter western looked at the classic American genre through the eyes of an outsider with its jack-rabbit-caught-in-a-den-of-wolves tale about a young man’s travels from the cold shoulder of Scotland into the baking heart of America to find his love.
Completely lost and out of his element, naive young Scot Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smith-McPhee) has travelled out West to search for his girl and her father who have fled from Scotland. Totally unprepared, he has his neck saved by laconic bounty hunter Silas (Michael Fassbender), who proceeds (in exchange for a few coins, of course) to ride shotgun, protecting his young companion. There's just one small thing: Jay is completely unaware there is a massive bounty on his love and her father's head. And $2000 dollars definitely entices a certain breed of undesirable. Most notably Payne (Ben Mandelsohn, sporting an enormous pimp-like fur overcoat) who along with other members of his posse track Jay and Silas toward their ultimate prize - and in the process into one of the greatest shoot-outs this side of Sergio Leone.
A minor myth of resounding proportions and significance, this highly modern addition to the Western canon is a fantastically enjoyable mix of intelligence, gallows humour and brutal violence. Made all the more special by Jed Kurzel’s mournful score and cinematographer Robbie Ryan's breathtaking visual evocation of the American frontier.