10 Westerns You Need To Watch After Playing Red Dead Redemption 2
5. Slow West
Released in 2015 to very little fanfare and subsequently flying under the radar, Slow West is a stunning feature debut from The Beta Band's John McClean - presumably the love-child of Bruce Willis' Die Hard protagonist and the guy who wrote American Pie.
Kodi Mitt-McPhee, the most whimsically named actor in Hollywood aside from Benedict Cumberbatch, plays Jay Cavendish, a young Scotsman on a quest to find his lost love, Rose, who has become a fugitive on the American Frontier. He employs bounty hunter Silas Selleck to protect him on his journey across the wilderness, but unbeknownst to him, Selleck has embarked on the same journey - however with the intention of capturing or killing Rose and her father and collecting the bounty. What follows is a slow-burning intrigue in which both characters develop from their inherent mistrust of each other and face tougher moral quandaries than ever before.
Whilst the film is most definitely a western, it almost has more in common with road movies of the sixties and seventies, with its two protagonists repeatedly sidetracked from their shared quest as they are wrong-footed by outlaw couples, treacherous shysters and sinister marauders. Its more absurdist elements - odd comedy moments and absinthe-induced hallucinations - are offset perfectly with scenes of intense brutality, and the result is a truly effective coming-of-age drama against a beautiful and deadly backdrop.