In the Wild West of the 1870s, Danish immigrant Jon (Mads Mikkelsen) arrives at a railway station to meet his wife and son who are coming to live with him. Following defeat in the war between Denmark and Germany, Jon and his brother Peter (Mikael Persbrand), both former soldiers, emigrated seven years previously to farm the barren land near the settlement of Black Creek.
Jon and his wife and son board a stagecoach to travel to Black Creek, as two strangers take their places opposite in the small coach. The more talkative of the two insists that Jon’s wife drink from his bottle of liquor and thereafter he begins to insult and taunt the couple. Eventually he makes a sexual assault on Jon’s wife. The situation rapidly escalates as guns are drawn and wife and son are restrained, and a knife is held to the young boy’s throat. Eventually Jon jumps from the stagecoach to save himself from being shot dead.
However, his wife and son are not so fortunate. What follows is a fascinating, sometimes moving saga, a Western with reverential nods to John Ford. It has a resonant score and a cracking screenplay that posits moral dilemmas as it goes through the wonderful hoops of the narrative.
The Salvation is also shot with exquisite skill, highlighting the stark beauty of the rural landscape as Jon embarks on a painful odyssey to exact revenge for his wife and child’s murder. His attempt to do so is frustrated by the ignorance of the townsfolk of Black Creek about the details of what actually happened in the course of the stagecoach ride and afterwards.
Suffice to say that the town is under the thumb of Colonel Delarue (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) the evil brother of one of the stagecoach hoodlums. One of his henchmen is The Corsican, played with impressive competence by Eric Cantona, though he doesn't have to do much, bar glower a lot and be occasionally violent.
Delarue blackmails the locals for punitive security fees and is also covertly involved in a land-buying racket, as the area is rich in untapped oil. The scene is set for a major showdown, to say the least. and Milkkelsen is extraordinarily powerful as the farmer intent on summary justice.
Directed by Danish Dogme co-founder, Kristian Levring (The King is Alive, The Intended) The Salvation is an intelligent, brilliantly realised revenge drama which moves fluently through a series of endlessly clever twists and turns. It is a little too slick though at times, as the actors appear to merely service the exigencies of the intricately-wrought plot late in the action. But that is a small quibble.
Paddy Kehoe
