‘Slow West’ Movie Reviews and Ratings: 2015 Film Stars Michael Fassbender, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Ben Mendelsohn

Michael Fassbender Attends the Toronto International Film Festival
Michael Fassbender at the Toronto International Film Festival at Ontario, Canada on September 2013. |

Jay Cavendish, a teenage boy leaves Scotland and treks across America in hopes of finding the woman he loves. He risk his life as he encounters wild animals and barbaric men who attempt to kill him. A stranger named Silas joins him on the journey. A dangerous outlaw pursues them in the West American frontier. They team up with bounty hunters to guarantee their survival. "Slow West' hit theaters on May 15.

Rotten Tomatoes rated "Slow West' a 87% on the Tomatometer. Its average rating is 7.3/10 taken from 62 reviews. It received 54 Fresh Tomatoes and 8 Rotten Tomatoes. Its Audience Score is 77% with an average rating of 3.7/5 out of 3,330 user ratings. Its rating on IMDb is 7.2/10 out of 1,705 user ratings. Metacritic rated the film with a Metascore of 72 taken from 26 critics. Its User Score is 6.8 out of 10 ratings. It received 21 positive reviews, 3 mixed reviews, and 2 negative reviews. According to Box Office Mojo, the film made $124,698 as of Thursday, May 28.

"Slow West' stars Michael Fassbender as Silas, Kodi Smit-McPhee as Jay Cavendish, Ben Mendelsohn as Payne, Caren Pistorius as Rose Ross, and Rory McCann as John Ross. The film was directed and written by John Maclean. The producers of the film are Iain Canning, Michael Fassbender, Rachel Gardner, Conor McCaughan, and Emile Sherman. The music is by Jed Kurzel and cinematography is by Robbie Ryan. Roland Gallois and Jon Gregory edited the film. DMC Film, Film4 Productions, New Zealand Film Commission, and See-Saw Films are the production companies for the film. It was distributed by A24 Films and Lionsgate UK.

Kodi Smit-McPhee Attends Comic Con
(Photo : Thibault/Wikimedia/CC)
Kodi Smit-McPhee at Comic Con in San Diego, California on July 2012.

Reviews on Rotten Tomatoes:

1) "An absurdist deconstruction of classic Hollywood westerns whose 21st-century view of frontier mythology is as sardonic as that of the Coen brothers," wrote Stephen Holden from New York Times.

2) "Maclean has something worthwhile to say about the true brutality of the old West, especially as it relates to immigration, but he hasn't quite found a compelling context for those musings, and he sprays ideas like buckshot," wrote Michael D'Angelo from AV Club.

3) "An angular Western that sublimates the fading promise of the New World into a fairy tale of unrequited love, Slow West starts with "once upon a time" and ends with a crackle of incredible savagery," wrote David Ehrlich from Time Out.

4) "Maclean's film is a wonderfully dreamy, if meandering, take on the western. Like all movies that use their fantastic surroundings, Slow West is best seen on a big screen," wrote Molly Eichel from Philadelphia Inquirer.

5) "[A] meandering, deliberate and tearless - yet oddly moving - western vehicle, which is both slow and, as gunslinger movies tend to be, action packed," wrote Michael O'Sullivan from Washington Post.