Slow West is a kind of brand new werstern that takes place in a beautiful landscape without precedents. This is an epic journey of a naive hero who goes through dummy but lovely situations which could remind you of Alice's Wonderland because its psychedelia and its moments of intoxication. A bitter-ending amateur odyssey plenty of charming beauty so far away from the cliches of the genre. Is this iconoclastic and cool tragedy the last of the acid westerns?

This film, set in 1870, follows sixteen year old Jay Cavendish who has left his native his native Scotland to find his beloved Rose who is now living in the American West. When we meet him he is in the west and shortly afterwards meets Silas, a bounty hunter who agrees to take him to Rose. It soon becomes apparent that Silas has other reasons for wanting to find Rose; she and her father have a bounty on their heads for the murder of Jay's wealthy uncle back in Scotland. As the pair progress west it soon becomes apparent that other bounty hunters are heading the same way and just about everybody we see is dangerous in some way. As our protagonists and various bounty hunters approach the remote cabin where Rose and her father now live a violent ending seems inevitable; the only real question is who will survive?Anybody expecting a classic western where the heroes are good and the villains are bad will be in for a bit of a surprise; this doesn't romanticise the old west; it shows it as a dangerous place where nobody is really good. Early on we see Jay shoot a woman who was pointing a gun at Silas in a trading post then leave her two young children with nobody to care for them. We later see that the supposed villains have taken then in. Knowing that Silas is after the bounty on Rose means we never know if he can be trusted not to turn on Silas at some point. While there are several characters this is mainly about Jay and Silas; Kodi Smit-McPhee and Michael Fassbender both impress in these roles. There isn't much in the way of gore but there are some shocking moments; none more so than the finale when everybody converges on Rose's cabin. The action may be set in the American west but was filmed in far-off New Zealand… something I suspect most viewers won't notice; I just noticed how beautiful it all looked. Writer/director does a fine job keeping the action taut and doesn't stretch the material too far… at only eighty minutes is distinctly short but making it longer would probably have just meant padding it with unnecessary material… and sometimes one only has time for a short film! Overall I enjoyed this more than expected.

This is one of those metaphorical movies where every scene, every dialog, every character may mean something unrelated to the supposed plot. The acting is good, the script very careful to detail and up to the - very slow - ending, you wonder what the movie will be about. The direction and editing are top notch, too.But is there a moral to the story? There are many. They are peppered throughout the film. This is not one of those "let's watch the first and last scenes so we know what this is about" movies. It unfolds like a book, self referencing and adding meaning way before it reaches the climax. It grows like dough in the oven.Truth is that except the slow pacing, and the slightly unsatisfying - but truly original - ending, it was almost perfect. I loved it.

I was so genuinely charmed by this movie that I decided to write a review for the first time as a member of IMDb. I watched this movie without knowing what to expect. I had just watched Hateful 8 and was quite disappointed with the ending. So when I was a bit skeptical when I was about to watch another western movie from a new director. But all my apprehensions disappeared 5 minutes into the movie. Its quite an impressive debut for director John Maclean. Slow West revolvers around a young Scottish boys journey into the 19th century outlaw America in the search for the girl he loves. In his journey he is accompanied by a mysterious outlaw in Michael Fassbender. The plot seems pretty simple and the movie itself is only 90 mins. However within that time the movie is able to portray the wilderness of the 19th century, A young mans quest for love, and an outlaws way of life. However its the ending that makes you wonder what exactly the message of this movie. And for as simple as it is it does make you think for a while.