Jane (Natalie Portman) is living quietly on the New Mexico frontier with her young daughter when her nogoodnik bandit husband Bill (Noah Emmerich) rides up in pretty bad shape.
Both Jane and Bill have long had speechifying, moustache- twirling villain John Bishop (Ewan McGregor) after them, and with Bill now indisposed, Jane has no option but to send her daughter away and seek out her hard-drinking, gun-slinging ex-lover Dan Frost (Joel Edgerton, who also co-wrote the screenplay). Despite the awkward chemistry and Dan’s seething sexual jealousy, needs must, and Dan and Jane ready themselves for a grand ol’ shoot- ‘em-up. And we do mean grand.
We had our fears and suspicions: this gently revisionist western has played musical chairs with cast and crew for more than four years. Lynn Ramsay was scheduled to direct in 2012: that task has now fallen to Gavin O’Connor. The role played by Ewan McGregor was previously earmarked for Jude Law, then Bradley Cooper; and Joel Edgerton now wears a hat once designated to Michael Fassbender. This luckless saga was compounded by a Stateside release that was scarcely worthy of the term ‘token’.
More’s the pity, because for all these production shenanigans, this gently feminist western is a solidly entertaining, handsomely staged oater, replete with DOP Mandy Walker’s sweeping landscapes, nervy string compositions from Dead Can Dance’s Lisa Gerrard, and rootin’, tootin’ performances.
McGregor has a blast channelling just a smidge of Blazing Saddles' Hedley Lamarr and there's a lovely sullen chemistry between Edgerton and Portman, who, despite her nymph-like physique, proves a dab hand with the weapon of the title.
As with his 1999 drama, Tumbleweeds, Gavin O'Connor once again proves that he can mine femininity just as effectively as he explored masculinity in Pride and Glory (2008) and Warrior (2011).
