The Salvation

When Danish emigrant Jon (Mads Mikkelsen) is joined by his wife and son, it looks like a new start for them in the American Wild West of the 1840s. After two trigger-happy ruffians turn happiness into bloodshed however, Jon exacts a swift revenge. His actions provoke ruthless gang leader Delarue (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) – the brother of one the bruisers – to pressure the townsfolk into apprehending the perpetrator. The battlelines are clearly drawn in this saga of suffering, vengeance and redemption, which pays homage to the great westerns (and Sergio Leone in particular) without ever quite measuring up to them.

Mads is as compelling as ever, a stoic, sinewy presence who never knows when he’s beat. But Morgan’s rollicking turn as the larger-than-life bad guy can’t quite disguise the mundane villainy in a narrative that’s so pared-down that only the stark outlines of conflict remain. That’s a bold move, but the result lacks enough complexity to hold cliché at bay, and the CGI-heavy visuals are distracting. Meanwhile, Eva Green glowers purposefully as a downtrodden woman who’s had her tongue cut out but never lost her fighting spirit.