Director: Kristian Levring Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Eva Green, Jonathan Pryce Writers: Kristian Levring, Anders Thomas Jensen | 2.5/5 The Salvation Anyone who reads me regularly knows that I am always bemoaning the lack of modern Westerns on the big screen. Not only that, but my grading tends to be more lenient on them due to the fact that I get so excited when I get to watch one. Alas, it pains me to finally give a mediocre score to Kristian Levring’s The Salvation, both because of my love for the Western genre and for my love of stars Mads Mikkelsen and Eva Green. Levring’s story, which strains to fill the short ninety-two minute running time, is a revenge tale as generic as they come. Man loses family, man takes out aggressors, and finally, man wonders off into the sunset to help other souls in need, Mad Max-style. If only Salvation packed the kind of kinetic energy as that film. I would love to say that the film contains at least one great set piece, but I come up short when I recall. Levring gives us a few somewhat tense moments, including a jail break, but nothing that comes close to the wild shoot out in the recent Slow West. That is not to say Salvation lacks bloodshed. Quite the contrary, the characters, both good and bad, dispense of so many bodies that it begins to feel callous, each fallen body more meaningless than the last. This is a shame, because with a more creative script, Levring’s cast could have really showed their full potential. Mikkelsen, an actor who knows the power of silence, is not going to spout off dialogue when a steely stare or a conflicted grimace will do the trick. You will sit in vain for an hour and a half waiting for the actor to showcase the kind of performance he gives every Saturday night on NBC’s ill-fated Hannibal. The same goes for Eva Green, who has her own under-watched show with Showtime’s Penny Dreadful. Green usually can spark up even the blandest of films, including last year’s 300 and Sin City sequels. She tries her damnedest, but her underdeveloped character is given hardly anything to do. |
With a sturdy cast, a few enjoyable scenes, and a whole lot of gorgeous cinematography - by far the best thing about the film -, Levring has given us a movie that is not unbearable, but highly forgettable. As I have said before, this may be the cruelest sentence to give a film. Salvation will not live on as a cult classic, nor will it be celebrated as B-movie trash. It merely…exists.
P.s. Fun fact: sometime before shooting ended, the small town, built from he ground up on location in Africa, burnt down. Instead of giving up, Levring soldiered on, determined to complete his film. You may scratch your head and wonder why the town looks smoldered in one scene and fine in the next, but I admit that I admire the director’s determination. I respect his drive, even if it made him feel the urge to tack on the last shot of a bunch of oil rigs. Oil hardly factors into the plot, yet the final frame hints at a deeper message, a la There Will Be Blood. Not happening. A for effort, though!
[Available on iTunes]
P.s. Fun fact: sometime before shooting ended, the small town, built from he ground up on location in Africa, burnt down. Instead of giving up, Levring soldiered on, determined to complete his film. You may scratch your head and wonder why the town looks smoldered in one scene and fine in the next, but I admit that I admire the director’s determination. I respect his drive, even if it made him feel the urge to tack on the last shot of a bunch of oil rigs. Oil hardly factors into the plot, yet the final frame hints at a deeper message, a la There Will Be Blood. Not happening. A for effort, though!
[Available on iTunes]