'Slow' an immersive look at violence, survival in the West

<b>Mini-review: 'Slow West'</b>

John Maclean's "Slow West" possesses a twisted sense of humor that ambushes our sensibilities and sidesteps our outrage sensors. Arthur Penn's "Bonnie and Clyde" did the same thing by eliciting unexpected laughs from brutal acts of violence.

"Slow West" does that, plus reconfigures the Hollywood western formula into something new and bold, a fatalistic, urgently pungent account of America's western expansion and its desentimentalized effects on immigrants and natives.

Fresh-faced actor Kodi Smit-McPhee plays Jay Cavendish, a naive, 16-year-old Scottish lad who has journeyed to Colorado seeking the love of his life, Rose Ross (Caren Pistorius). Jay, a figurative babe in the literal woods, receives help from a laconic, cynical stranger, Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender), a frontiersman and survivalist.

He's also a bounty hunter, a fact he conceals from Jay, because he's looking for Rose, who's apparently wanted dead or alive. Silas figures to let Jay lead him to his target.

That's the plot in Maclean's tight, well-crafted first feature, a bleak anti-western that's not so much about plot as it is the characters and the internal conflicts they suffer as a result of the many external conflicts crossing their paths.

The easy violence of Hollywood westerns gives way to the high costs of violence in this one. Look no further than the scene in which a starving husband and wife desperately attempt to rob a general store.

It does not end well. Then, with an additional twist of Maclean's razor-sharp narrative knife, things go from merely bad to appalling.

"Slow West" ends with a prairie house shootout that's anything but old-fashioned.

By emphasizing the heightened sound of bullets whizzing in air, then striking wood, windows and bodies, the movie presents an intense, almost immersive experience as Jay, Silas and a gang of bad-butt outlaws (led by Ben Mendelsohn's snakelike Payne), move in on the homestead harboring a panicked Rose Ross.

Like a Sam Peckinpah western, "Slow West" attests to the inevitability of violence and its casual use as a source of sport (against Native Americans?), protection, persuasion and profit.

As the title implies, "Slow West" takes its own good time in unfolding its story and characters. (See "Max Max Fury Road" if you need something on caffeine speed.)

If you come out of Maclean's jaundiced vision of America's western experience (actually shot in New Zealand) feeling as if you need a counter dose of true love, better rent "The Princess Bride."

<b>"Slow West" opens at the Music Box in Chicago. Rated R for language, violence. 84 minutes. ★ ★ ★ ½</b>