Slow and steady

Trigger happy

I've never been the biggest fan of the Western genre and I'll always prefer samurais over cowboys any day. On a whim, I rented Slow West because my dad happens to be the biggest Western fan I know of and hasn't seen a good western since Django Unchained; at which point I decided to watch it with him after not finding anything to watch on TV or on my DVR. Originally, I didn't plan on reviewing the film for the reason I mentioned earlier and because it has the word "slow" in the title; combining that with a western setting always exhausts the best of my patience to sit through the whole thing. However, after I finished watching it, I reached a different opinion than what I had originally thought, and it turns out 

Slow West is actually.....not bad! The story follows a young Scottish teenager named Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee) traveling across 19th century America in search of his sweetheart who left their home country. Along the way, Jay runs into an outlaw named Silas (Michael Fassbender) who "persuades" Jay to be his guide and join him on his journey through the frontier. Jay reluctantly accepts to better his chances to find the woman he loves unbeknownst to him Silas has a hidden purpose for accompanying him. Despite what the title says, Slow West is only slow in the figurative sense, more or less describing the exit of the Great West era. And because it's a short film, Slow West never drags on for too long, getting straight to the core of its' story. Fassbender pulls out the right energy for every situation his character is in, and Kodi does an excellent job of tapping that "innocent boy" niche for his role. In summation, Slow West surprised me especially for a western, and I happily recommend it.

-Reviewed by Razor, 7/18/15