Take a look at the first trailer for writer-director-star and three-time Oscar nominee Viggo Mortenson’s new project, The Dead Don’t Hurt, and see if you agree that it looks like a more authentic Western than what we’ve seen in the previews for Kevin Costner’s new multi-film project, Horizon: An American Saga. That said, the trope in the modern Western of deriving the revenge plot from a woman murdered, brutalized, or raped has been done so many times you have to wish they would pick anything else to motivate the star hero. We get it, people liked Unforgiven. But it doesn’t need repeated every time audiences hunger for a new Western. Just flip through the best Westerns of all time–it’s not the predominant Western trope by a longshot.
To say “John Ford and Howard Hawks would love this movie” is puffery and that’s what trailers are, but it seems a little obnoxious. That said, Mortenson has earned our attention, and he’s populated this movie with some real talent, including Garret Dillahunt, Earl Brown, Colin Morgan, and John’s son and Anjelica’s brother, the ubiquitous Danny Huston. There are several ringers for more familiar actors in the film: That’s Ray McKinnon, not Sam Waterston, as the judge. That’s Michael Weaver, not Seth Rogen, as the bad soldier. And that’s not Phoebe Waller-Bridge, but Vicky Krieps (who starred in M. Night Shyamalan’s Old) as co-star. By the way, just because it’s a Western doesn’t mean you can’t have more than one big woman role in the film (someone please let Hollywood know).
Westerns are probably the most difficult genre to get right, because they’ve been gone for the most part for decades now, and if you didn’t grow up with Westerns you might not know the difference between good ones and bad ones.
Check it out for yourself, the first trailer for The Dead Don’t Hurt:
It’s a good title. It has the vintage look and feel right. But these new Westerns are sure making us want to go back and re-watch the Coen Brothers’ The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and True Grit.
Catch The Dead Don’t Hurt in theaters May 31, 2024.
C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg
