Betrayed by his corrupt and cowardly community, Danish settler Jon (Mads Mikkelsen) must become a vengeful hunter and cleanse his town’s black heart.
In the America of the 1870s, Big Oil was Bad Oil and the Wild West was very wild indeed.
Director Kristian Levring's stoic and steadily intense western features TV's Hannibal star Mads Mikkelsen as a Danish settler pushed to the point of heavy vengeance.
The brute of the film is Jeffrey Dean Morgan as an unconscionable gang leader in the employ of a land-grabbing oil company.
But the way the cowering townsfolk sell each other out is just as ugly anything the evil fella is capable of.
Of course, what Mikkelsen's character is capable of is the central tension at work here. There aren't pages of dialogue attached to this windswept and widescreen tale of frontier injustice.
In fact, Eva Green – that dazzling Bond girl Eva Green – portrays a scarred and steely mute, the acting done by eyes alone. She says nothing; depends on no one.
In an untamed world where hypocrisy is loud and where no one can be trusted, salvation is one's own business and actions speak louder than words.
Brad Wheeler