“Never start a fight you can’t win…”
Directed by: Kristian Levring
Written by: Anders Thomas Jensen, Kristian Levring
Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Eva Green, Mikael Persbrandt, Jonathan Pryce
The H-Bomb: In the 1870’s, Danish war vet Jon Jensen (Mikkelsen) immigrated to the American west with his brother, Peter (Persbrandt), to start a new, peaceful life. After seven years of separation, Jon’s wife, Marie (Nanna Oland Fabricius) and young son, Kresten (Toke Lars Bjarke), make the journey from Europe to join him. On the ride home from the train station, the Jensens share the stagecoach with two rather unsavory gents, one of whom has just been released from prison.
After sucking down a bottle of whiskey, our unsavory gents take a liking to Mrs. Jensen, and toss Jon out of the stagecoach. He gives chase, of course, and when he finally catches up to the coach, he finds that the these two unsavory sorts have done some very nasty things to his wife and son. So, the old soldier in Jon kicks in, as he picks up a nearby rifle and does some nasty things of his own to these pieces of human filth.
Frontier justice being what it is, you would think that would be the end of it. After all, poor Jon lost his wife and child after only being reunited with them for about an hour. But you would be wrong. One of our unsavory gents had a brother, Henry Delarue (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a notoriously vicious gang leader who is feared by everyone in town, including the piss-ant sheriff (Douglass Henshall) and the chickenshit mayor (Pryce). Delarue is quite upset over the death of his brother, and in a move that should surprise no one, he swears revenge on the man who killed him… regardless of how justified that man’s motives were.
In the six years that I’ve been active as a critic, I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing exactly two westerns, Jonah Hex and The Lone Ranger, and they were both steaming piles of dog shit. Now, I love westerns, there are many westerns that I would count among my favorite films. Sadly, most of those films are forty years old or older. I was born in 1981, and I can count on my two hands the number of decent westerns that have come out in my lifetime (if anyone wants, I’ll happily list them in the comments below). It’s a great genre that Hollywood has let die, and when they do make a half-assed attempt to revive it, it’s with crap like Jonah Hex and The Lone Ranger.
The fact that a good western is so damn hard to come by makes me appreciate The Salvation all the more. As stark and bleak as its frontier setting, this isn’t some polished pseudo-western that’s been toned down for the popcorn munching summer masses, this is the real deal; grimy, blood soaked, and at points, downright savage. Co-writer/director Kristian Levring isn’t aiming for anything existential or profound, like Unforgiven, nor is he attempting to turn the genre on its head, like Django Unchained.
Instead, Levring has simply made the kind of western they don’t make anymore. The kind with a hero we root for all the way, a true scoundrel of a villain we love to hate, and a revenge story line that is tough and refreshingly straightforward. The cinematography by Jens Schlosser gives the picture a slightly washed out look, adding to the stylized grittiness of it all, and the violence is so ferocious, it makes even the most brutal “Spaghetti Westerns” from the 60’s and 70’s look tame by comparison. The time and place these characters inhabited was utterly merciless, and the film captures that to a T.
Elements are borrowed liberally from the cowboy flicks of old. The idea of a town full of cowards being lorded over by a small gang of outlaws comes from High Plains Drifter, and the notion of a lone gunman forced to stand up to said gang, because no one else has the nuts to, is pure High Noon. If there’s anything I hold against The Salvation, is that it isn’t really anything that hasn’t been done before. The way in which the overall story plays out is somewhat predictable, however, I found it so gripping, and the climactic showdown, an elaborate gun battle set in the heart of town, so satisfying, that I ultimately didn’t mind the familiarity of it all.
The casting here is absolutely perfect, with Mikkelsen shedding his typical villain persona in order to portray, quite convincingly, an every-man hero. Jon Jensen is a guy who gets fucked over so many times over the course of the film, that when he finally makes his stand, with guns blazing, we are one hundred percent on his side. Holding his own with Mikkelsen is Morgan as the dastardly bastard of a villain who, we are told, was once a good man, but now we would love nothing more than to see him ventilated with a six-shooter. Within minutes of meeting Delarue, we are shown what a cold, evil motherfucker he truly is, and Morgan captures that brilliantly. He is straight up chilling.
The most intriguing character in The Salvation is one I haven’t touched upon yet, Eva Green’s Madelaine, Delarue’s widowed sister-in-law. She’s mute, due to an incident in her past, though that doesn’t mean she can’t hear, or scheme. Green plays the role solely through her facial expressions, without the use of her alluring accent. Her expressions indicate she has her own agenda, but one that’s a mystery to us. She is the film’s wildcard, and her actions, at least to a point, are unpredictable. Despite not having any dialogue, Green still manages to deliver an arresting performance. If that isn’t a sign of true talent, I don’t know what is.
All things considered, The Salvation is an enthralling entry in a genre that is sadly neglected in this day and age. Clocking in at a brisk 91 minutes, this lean, mean little flick shot in and out of theaters faster than a bullet through plate glass, and that is a crying shame. Now that it’s hit DVD, it’s time for real western fans, and fans of good films in general, to give it a twirl and see what they missed; a dark, visceral little yarn with balls of brass, that pulls no punches, and packs a genuine wallop.
