One-Liners: What's the Rush?

A pair of leisurely dramas from two debut writer/directors:

SLOW WEST (B+) - This is a gorgeous movie, best viewed on a big screen, a quiet indie throwback to classic westerns.

John Maclean, perhaps best known as the leader of the Beta Band around the turn of the millennium, has graduated from videos and short films to a full-length feature. Set in the American West in 1870, it was shot in New Zealand, and the landscape is breathtaking but never showy. The screen is frequently bathed in baby blues, or the amber of the glow of candles or a campfire. The framing of shots is exquisite and the images wonderfully sharp.

Oh, and there's a story, too. Teenager Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee from "A Birder's Guide to Everything") has traveled from Scotland to track down his childhood crush, Rose (Caren Pistorius), who fled the homeland for America with her father after some trouble with the law. They star on Wanted posters in the new frontier, and they've gone into hiding. The timid, effeminate Jay -- completely out of his element -- is determined to track them down.

He is saved from danger by a rugged stranger, Silas (Michael Fassbender, who also produced), who agrees to be the kid's bodyguard for $100, half upfront. But Silas, no surprise, is hoping that Jay will lead him to a large bounty for capturing the father and daughter. The odd-couple pairing provides some quietly comic moments. (In order to help lighten the boy's load, Silas tosses away his ceramic teapot.)

Maclean has done his homework, because "Slow West" is a confident homage to the filmmakers who have blazed that Oregon trail. A pivotal scene at a hitching post -- in which Jay and Silas get caught unarmed while a desperate foreign couple try to rob the joint -- is perfectly paced, ending with a compelling visual punchline, one of several optical sleights of hand that Maclean handles flawlessly. (He imbues the narrative with a dark Darwinian humor.)

Maclean employs acoustic guitar music to great effect -- the same riffs repeating on a loop throughout the movie, sounding a lot like the effect in "In the Mood for Love." (Jed Kurzel is credited with the soundtrack.)

What starts as a slow drift builds in tension, especially when Ben Mendelsohn ("Starred Up") shows up as one of Silas' menacing former bounty buddies, Payne, who engages his own gang in the hunt. The climactic shoot-out lasts nearly 15 minutes and floats like a ballet. Maclean's eye is unerring, whether he's looking up at the stars or zooming in on raindrops plopping on the barrel of a gun that's been left on the ground. By the end, it's all rather astonishing.

SOMETHING, ANYTHING (B-minus) - This one crawls at a snail's pace. A woman suffers a miscarriage and doesn't get enough sympathy from her husband (Act 1), so she leaves him and embarks on a spiritual quest, shedding possessions (Act 2), before then hunting down a former high school classmate who has joined a monastery (Act 3).

The laconic narrative is further weighted down by a morose lead, Ashley Shelton as Margaret (Peggy), who walks a fine line between seeking and moping. Sure, she's portraying a depressed and haunted woman, but Shelton shows no ability for subtlety or nuance. She is so mechanical that you want to look for her energy switch and flip it to the next speed.

Filmmaker Paul Hamill's hand here is not invisible. You feel the weightiness of his writing and directing, his maleness intruding on this woman's thoughts and journey. His two male leads -- Bryce Johnson as hubby Mark and Linds Edwards as the monk Tim -- don't offer much pizzazz, either.

But Hamill will fool you a few times with his plot choices, and he's got a decent ending up his sleeve. He captures the ordinariness of life well. He just needs to sharpen his game a bit and recruit a livelier cast to his next project.

BONUS TRACK
The song from a random scene from "Slow West," in which Jay and Silas stumble on three Congolese musicians playing the song "Mbanza Congo" (by Passi Joe):



And the main theme by "Django Django":