Because the main complaint about Westerns is that they are too fast.
Jay Cavendish: All I'm sayin' is there's more to life than just surviving.
Silas Selleck: Yeah. There's dyin'.
Silas Selleck: Yeah. There's dyin'.
Slow West is a 2015 Western film from John Maclean.
It follows Scottish teen Jay Cavendish as he crosses the American frontier in search of his love. He hires the bounty hunter Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender) as his guide.
The film was the Dramatic Winner of the 2015 Sundance Jury Prize.
Provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Rose has a gun and knows how to use it.
- Act of True Love: Jay left behind his life of nobility to seek Rose on an unfamiliar continent.
- Affably Evil:
- Payne is charming and gregarious, but a ruthless outlaw.
- Werner is a friendly German man who has come to the West to try to document the cultures and societies of the Native tribes before they're eradicated by either being murdered or forcibly converted to Christianity. After spending a nice night with Jay, he promises him fresh eggs in the morning. Jay wakes to discover Werner has stolen all of his stuff...although he did leave him an egg and a sign pointing West which blows away uselessly
- Alliterative Name: Silas Selleck.
- Asshole Victim: No one really has any sympathy for the "injun slayers".
- Babies Ever After: Heavily implied by Jay's dream where Silas sits at the breakfast table with Rose who holds a baby.
- Bad Habits: One of the bounty hunters pretends to be a preacher to get information.
- Bittersweet Ending: Silas stops drifting and settles down with Rose, but Jay and sixteen other people are dead.
- Boom, Headshot!: The preferred method of killing in this film.
- Bounty Hunter: Payne's group are bounty hunters out to collect on Rose.
- Damsel out of Distress: Rose is defending herself with a gun when her rescuers arrive.
- Death by Irony: Silas and Jay discover the skeleton of a man crushed by the tree he chopped down.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Payne's gang is shown to have taken in the Swedish orphans.
- Foreshadowing: Jay getting shot in his left breast is foreshadowed several times. In one flashback, Rose pretends to shoot him with an arrow, causing him to clutch his chest and pretend to die. In another flashback, she feigns pressing a gun to his left breast and firing. When he tries on a jacket at the general store, he discovers that it has a bloody bullet hole in its left breast. Skell also told a story about accidentally shooting somebody he thought had killed his partner.
- Improperly Placed Firearms: The opening credits state the film takes place in 1870, yet many of the firearms that appear on-screen are just a bit too modern for the period. Most of the characters use the Colt Single Action Army revolver, which was first introduced in 1873, and the cartridge-loaded Sharps rifle used by the Reverend did not exist until 1874; a period-accurate model would have used paper cartridges.
- In Vino Veritas: Payne attempts to invoke this by giving absinthe to Silas.
- No Sense of Personal Space: Payne sits or stands too close for comfort for most people.
- Oh, Crap!: Silas and Jay upon leaving the general store to see the dead Swedish couple had two children.
- Also Rose when she realizes the person she shot coming into her house was Jay, not one of the bounty hunters
- Only a Flesh Wound: Silas manages to limp around despite being shot in the leg.
- Only Shop in Town: The general store has the only provisions for miles. The proprietor uses this to try to convince the Swedish couple that it would be pointless to rob him. It doesn't work
- Outlaw: Silas refer to himself and those like him as "men beyond the law."
- Pimp Duds: Payne has the large hat, cigar, and enormous fur coat.
- Poor Communication Kills: Jay fails to call out a warning as he barges into Rose's house. She mistakes him for one of the bounty hunters and shoots him.
- Scenery Porn: There are several wide shots of the beautiful landscape during the Travel Montage.
- Screw Yourself: Silas tells Payne, "Fuck yourself, Payne". Payne casually replies, "I've tried".
- Twilight of the Old West: Silas remarks that men like him are becoming rarer as the country is settled.
- Visual Pun: A container of salt falls on an open wound. After Jay sees the Native warrior Kotori kiss Rose in front of him.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: Jay believes the West is a place of hope and good will.
- "Wanted!" Poster: Silas hides the one for Rose and her father.
