Friday Film : Slow West – film review

Slow West stars Michael Fassbender as a sexy cowboy.

If that alone doesn’t inspire you to go check out this stylish and beautifully shot western, then you might want to check your pulse to see you haven’t gone to that great wild west in the sky.

Fassbender plays Silas, a ‘seen it all, got no time for bull’ bounty hunter who takes charge of an out of his depth 16-year-old Scottish boy called Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee) determined to find his love, Rose (Caren Pistorius) in 19th century Colorado. Together man and boy trek across dangerous territory heaving with killers and robbers, each with a different mission in mind.

This is writer-director John Maclean’s first feature film and he surely has a bright future ahead in the industry. The film is visually stunning (and that’s not just Fassbender) being wonderfully shot by cinematographer Robbie Ryan and has an old elegance about it which is rare in debut features.

As an antidote to the Jurassic Worlds of the summer, Slow West is a treat.