Kodi Smit-McPhee and Michael Fassbender , behind, in Slow West (2015).
A chalky dust storm, a desolate trading post, a gruff but kindly criminal – writer-director John Maclean's western saddles up nearly every cliché of the genre as a credulous young Scot (Kodi Smit-McPhee) makes his way across 1870s America in search of his lost love.
For reasons connected to the gang of bounty hunters shadowing the young man's journey, a laconic loner (Michael Fassbender) steps in to chaperone. The characters they meet recite Shakespeare, the Bible and digressive campfire yarns.
It reinforces the mythic frontier folk tale, but with a landscape more picture-perfect than the real thing (New Zealand stands in for Colorado); it's all so mannered that it would be arty were it not for the warmth between the leads. As they drift west together, bits of their naiveté rub off. It's as artificial – and as lightly satisfying – as a round at a fairground shooting gallery.
Nathalie Atkinson