Bone Tomahawk

Year: 2015
Director: S Craig Zahler

Sorry Quentin, but Bone Tomahawk is probably the best Western starring Kurt Russell that’s been released so far this year.
We open with a close up of a throat being slit. It’s a shocking start, but calculatedly so. The next ninety minutes are going to be fairly slow paced and incident free, but this reminds us that this kind of messy violence is part and parcel of the Old West setting, and it leaves a little ripple of disquiet that becomes a raging sea in the final act.
The opening bloodshed sets in motion a train of events that end with the kidnapping of a murderous drifter, along with the nurse treating him and a sherriff’s deputy, by a nearby tribe. A local Indian warns of their savagery, but, unfazed, a small team saddles up and rides out to the rescue. This middle section takes up the lion’s share of the film. It’s a showcase for the lovely arid cinematography, and writer / director Zahler’s superbly novelistic dialogue. There’s a great amount of pleasure to be had from the interactions among the four man posse, as their characters are revealed by incident and conversation. Russell’s Sheriff Hunt is a man of duty, stoic in his acceptance that he must do this even if he really doesn’t want to. His deputy Chicory, excellently played by Richard Jenkins, is as close as we come to comic relief, an over talkative, over the hill, Civil War veteran who is out of his depth on this kind of mission. Matthew Fox’s Brooder is an arrogant foppish white suited dandy, who is also a stone killer with a special hatred of Indians. Arthur O’Dwyer (Patrick White) is as close as we come to a hero, the husband of the kidnapped nurse, a man so driven by honour and pride that he insists on joining the posse to recover her despite a broken leg.
After much travail, the party reach the territory of the kidnappers, and here the film takes a sharp turn away from its languid traditional Western feel. The promise of blood from the opening sequence is repaid in spades, and the primary influence ofThe Searchers is supplanted by The Hills Have Eyes. The final half hour becomes relentlessly and grimly brutal with some horrific scenes that had me wincing in my seat. There’s a lot to chew on in this movie (pun very much intended). The classic Western theme of bringing order and civilisation to lawless chaos is played out at its most elementary level and much like The Exorcist, it uses horror as a way to explore the nature of faith. As with all good Westerns, it’s also a vehicle for examining the US – an early reference to manifest destiny is no throwaway.
It’s best avoided if you don’t have a strong stomach, but this is a really strong film that has lingered in my mind all day. “Sleep well”, said the usherette on the way out. I didn’t.

Might appeal to people who enjoyed:

Films by Howard Hawks, Wes Craven, John Carpenter

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