The Salvation (2014) - Kristian Levring

Set in 1870's America, Krisitan Levring's The Salvation tells the story Jon and Peter, two Danish brothers, who have left their homeland for America, living out west.  Starting a new life for him and his family, Jon arrived ahead of his family with his brother Peter, but today is the day that Jon's wife and ten-year-old son arrive in America.   Reunited with the two most important people in his life, Jon couldn't be happier, but lets just say on the stagecoach ride to town things don't go well.  Krisitan Levring's The Salvation is a revenge story that borrows many of the typical tropes of the American Western bringing european sensibilites and brutality.  Mad's Mikkleson is obviously well cast as our main protagonist but it's Jeffery Dean Morgan's Dalarue that surprised me, a ruthless, stone-cold killer who terrorizes the small Western town.  It's a love letter to the Western genre, capturing the anarchic state of the wild west where justice seems to only be an allusion.  Very stylistic and expressive in its photography, The Salvation using lighting in a way that certainly wouldn't be attributable to the Western genre, but Levring aims for an authentic feel, even using  old timey lenses in a few key sequences to do so.  The Salvation isn't overly gorey or bloody but it's a brutal slice of filmmaking, being a good reminder that sometimes less-is-more in certain moments of the film.  Given that Dalarue is working for a oil company and The Salvation's final shot is a bunch of oil deacons, the film could certainly be considered a parable for corporate greed, but it wouldn't be completely earned, almost hinted at but never discussed.  Sure to be enjoyed by fans of the Western genre, The Salvation is a brutal and dirty revenge story that brings a unique perspective.  

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