The Salvation

The Salvation isn’t so much a movie about the Old West as it is a movie about old westerns.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing – a lot of great art has been made by people reimagining or reinterpreting the classics that inspired them. And that’s particularly the case when it comes to directors of different nationalities putting their own spin on another country’s archetypes.

With The Salvation, director and co-writer Kristian Levring (one of the charter members of Denmark’s cinematic movement Dogme) appropriates many iconic aspects of American westerns – and a few spaghetti westerns – while folding in a bleak Nordic attitude. It’s not the most natural or comfortable of combinations, but it’s intriguing and engaging nevertheless.

Jon (the ever-magnetic Mads Mikkelsen from Hannibal and The Hunt) is a former Danish soldier who sought his fortune in 19th century America and, after many years apart, is about to be reunited with his wife and son. But no sooner have they set foot on America soil than they meet a terrible fate at the hands of scummy outlaws who then meet their fate at the hands of sharpshooting Jon.

This sets in motion a cycle of retribution, as one member of the deceased scum posse was the brother of Delarue (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, nicely venomous), a truly bad dude with no qualms about wasting innocent people until he gets his hands on Jon.

Levring pulls off the nifty trick of making The Salvation familiar enough to give audiences a sense of security while occasionally pulling the rug out from under them, and he’s done well to assemble a fine cast that includes Eva Green, who as we all know makes anything 90% better just by showing up.