Is it the end of the world?

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2024

#40 :  The Dead Don't Hurt

Viggo Mortensen directs, writes, composes and acts in this beautifully shot and sombre film about an old-school hero in a 19th-century frontier community fraught with tragedy.

Never heard of this one, but Viggo is often an indicator of quality - although we've actually only met him once so far and he was completely wasted in that. But I'm certainly intrigued enough to give it a chance.

It doesn't go out of its way to explain what's going on - it's set in a small US town "a long time ago" in the past (and I"m not going to argue with The Guardian that's it the 19th century) and it also includes flashbacks (which I guess are "a longer time ago"). It's basically a Western and you get the impression Viggo is one of the good guys and there are obviously quite a few bad guys but you're not entirely sure how bad. The film plays fast and loose with the timeline with everything interweaved in a non-linear stylee - I got a bit confused so had to resort to Wikipedia to explain things but once I'd done that I felt I should probably have caught up with things quicker than I did. Story wise, it's not pushing any boundaries but it's a decent enough western with some interesting characters who you care about enough to stick with to the end - and I think that's all I really need to say on the plot front.

Viggo is his usual "strong but silent" self in this but he should definitely be renamed Wiggo because he has the most dreadful hair. It was also nice to bump into another indicator of quality in the form of Vicky Krieps, who's always good - who could have imagined we'd already be up to four visits with the lass. The first time we met her was in Phantom Thread with Daniel Day Lewis who's certainly no slouch on the acting front but that's the only time we've met him! It was also nice to see Garret Dillahunt - he's not always in shows of the highest quality, but he does elevate the material somewhat (I particularly liked him in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which, it's fair to say, is somewhat different from this film).

It is well directed - it's an impressive piece of work if only for the retro nature of the sets with some of them being really well done and feeling very authentic. And some of the landscapes are absolutely gorgeous to look at - there's really all sorts of interesting stuff going on in some bits of the US. If I was to have one niggle, some of the plot strands are just dropped - I wanted to know if some of the baddies were going to get what's coming to them, but it was just never mentioned again. My other main comment is that unless you speak English, French and Spanish, then you're going to need the subtitles on here - characters flip between all three in some scenes.

I enjoyed this without loving it - it was a nicely diverting two hours, but if I'd not watched it then I can't say I feel I'd have missed out. "Competent" feels like a reasonable description on all fronts - if such faint praise has set your pulse racing, then it's available to stream on Paramount+ (I wonder how many people actually pay for that) or to rent in all the usual places.

#41 - Essential, but also "what's the point?"