''The Salvation'' is a 2014 Danish

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

film directed by

Kristian Levring Kristian Levring (; born 9 May 1957) is a Danish film director. He was the fourth signatory of the Dogme95 movement. His feature films as director include ''Et skud fra hjertet'', ''The King is Alive'', ''The Intended'', ''Fear Me Not'', and ''The ...

and written by

Anders Thomas Jensen Anders Thomas Jensen (born 6 April 1972) is a Danish screenwriter and film director. His film ''Election Night (1998 film), Election Night'' won the 1998 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. Life and career Jensen was born in Frederi ...

and Levring. The film stars Mads Mikkelsen,

Eva Green Eva Gaëlle Green (, ; born ) is a French actress and model. The daughter of actress Marlène Jobert, she began her career in theatre before making her film debut in Bernardo Bertolucci's '' The Dreamers'' (2003). She achieved international reco ...

Jeffrey Dean Morgan Jeffrey Dean Morgan (born April 22, 1966) is an American actor of television and film, best known for playing the character Negan in the AMC horror drama series '' The Walking Dead'' (2016–2022), for which he has received critical acclaim. He ...

Jonathan Pryce Sir Jonathan Pryce (born John Price; 1 June 1947) is a Welsh actor who is known for his performances on stage and in film and television. He has received numerous awards, including two Tony Awards and two Laurence Olivier Awards. In 2021 he was ...

Eric Cantona Eric Daniel Pierre Cantona (; ; born 24 May 1966) is a French actor, director, producer, and former professional footballer. Often regarded as one of the greatest players of his generation, Cantona is credited as having made Manchester United a d ...

Mikael Persbrandt Mikael Åke Persbrandt (; born 25 September 1963) is a Swedish actor. In Swedish films, he is perhaps best known for playing Gunvald Larsson in the ''Beck'' series of movies. He is internationally known for his starring role in the Academy Award ...

Douglas Henshall Douglas “Dougie” James Henshall (born 19 November 1965) is a Scottish television, film and stage actor. He is best known for his roles as Professor Nick Cutter in the science fiction series '' Primeval'' (2007–2011) and Detective Inspect ...

and

Michael Raymond-James Michael Raymond-James (born Michael Weverstad; December 24, 1977) is an American actor. He is best known for playing René Lenier in the first season of the HBO series ''True Blood'', Britt Pollack on the FX series ''Terriers'', Neal Cassidy/B ...

Plot

Following the

Second Schleswig War The Second Schleswig War ( da, Krigen i 1864; german: Deutsch-Dänischer Krieg) also sometimes known as the Dano-Prussian War or Prusso-Danish War was the second military conflict over the Schleswig-Holstein Question of the nineteenth century. T ...

of 1864, Jon and his brother Peter emigrate to the United States from Denmark and settle somewhere between the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

and the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

. Seven years later, in 1871, Jon's wife, Marie and his 10-year-old son, Kresten, arrive. After they all meet, Jon and his family board a stagecoach bound for their small residence while Peter stays behind. Their coach is also boarded by recently released criminals, Paul and Lester. Following a tense struggle, the criminals throw Jon out of the moving coach after which they rape and kill Jon's wife. They also kill his son and the stagecoach driver and guard. With great effort, Jon catches up to the coach to find his family murdered. Enraged, he kills the two convicts. Unbeknownst to Jon, Paul is the brother of Henry Delarue, a notorious gang leader and land baron. Upon hearing the news, Delarue kills three innocent citizens of Black Creek, the town that reports the deaths to him. He also forces the townspeople to cooperate and find his brother's killer. Delarue was once an army colonel who fought Native Americans. At one point, he is stated to have once been a good man before he became twisted by war. After burying his wife and son, Jon decides to leave the town with Peter and sells his land to Keane, Black Creek's mayor and undertaker. Before they can leave, Jon and Peter are captured by the town sheriff and minister, Mallick. As Jon sits in his cell, Mallick tells him that his death will buy the town more time while he tries to inform higher authorities of Delarue's actions. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Delarue is working with the Standard Atlantic Oil Company and, with the help of Mayor Keane, had been acquiring Black Creek and its surrounding land, which is rich with untapped crude oil. Unknown to Mallick, the company managed to intercept his message for help and prevent it from reaching the authorities. Delarue's now widowed sister-in-law Madelaine, who is mute, acts as his accountant and suffers sexual and physical abuse from him. The next morning, Jon is escorted to Delarue's base, an abandoned town, and is tied to a post and left in the sun. In Black Creek, Peter breaks out of jail and kills several of Delarue's henchmen. He cuts Jon free, and the pair ride off while being pursued by Delarue and his remaining men. Realizing Jon is too weak to carry on, Peter conceals him and leads the gang away, and is eventually caught and killed. Taking advantage of Delarue's absence, Madelaine steals his cash and boards a train. However, the train is intercepted, and she is captured. Delarue tells his men to kill Madelaine after they are done raping her. Jon roams the countryside, looking for water and shelter. He stumbles across a small residence belonging to Mrs. Whistler, whose husband was killed by Delarue. Jon takes shelter in her house to recover from his wounds while Mrs. Whistler and her children flee. After returning to town, he confronts and kills Mayor Keane for his deception. At the general store, he arms himself and reluctantly accepts the help of Voichek, the young storekeeper whose grandmother was killed by Delarue. Jon uses diversions and guerrilla tactics to kill Delarue's henchmen one at a time. Voichek is killed and inadvertently sets fire to the hotel where Madelaine is being held, enabling her to escape. Delarue finds and wounds Jon. Just as he is about to kill Jon, Madelaine shoots Delarue twice, and Jon finishes him with a shot to the head. Sheriff Mallick and his deputies arrive at the scene and thank Jon. When they try to arrest Madelaine, Jon orders them to leave and states that he will be taking her with him. The pair leave together, and the film then reveals that the land is ultimately taken over by the oil company.

Cast

* Mads Mikkelsen as Jon, the Danish settler and the heart of the story *

as Madelaine, Delarue's mute, widowed sister-in-law *

as Delarue, a former Yankee Colonel in the civil war, and native American killer and now the gang leader and land baron. *

as The Corsican, Delarue's enforcer *

as Peter, Jon's brother *

as Sheriff Mallick *

as Paul *

as Mayor Keane * Alex Arnold as Voichek *

Nanna Øland Fabricius Nanna Øland Fabricius (born 2 May 1985), better known by her stage name Oh Land, is a Danish musician, singer, songwriter, actress and television personality. Early life Oh Land was born in Copenhagen, the daughter of Bendt Fabricius, an orga ...

as Marie, Jon's wife * Toke Lars Bjarke as Kresten, Jon and Marie's son *

Sean Cameron Michael Sean Cameron Michael (born 24 December 1969) is a South African actor, writer and singer. A native English speaker, he is also fluent in Afrikaans. Early life Michael was born in Cape Town, South Africa. He became interested in acting at the a ...

as Lester * Carl Nel as Stagecoach Whip * Sivan Raphaely as Mrs. Delgado * Grant Swanby as Joe No Legs * Robert Hobbs as Silvertooth * Adam Neill as Mr. Bradley * Langley Kirkwood as Man with Beard

Production

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

began on 8 April 2013 in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, ''The Salvation'' has a rating of 72% rating based on 78 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "It's all but impossible to add anything new or fresh to the traditional Western, but – thanks in no small part to Mads Mikkelsen's performance – ''The Salvation'' comes close." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

the film has a score of 64 out of a 100 based on 19 critics, signifying "generally favorable reviews". In ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...

'', Jonathan Romney found that the film "tips its Stetson to John Ford and Sergio Leone with bold widescreen visuals – daytime shots in which even the sun looks sunbaked, prairie nightscapes resembling ink-soaked denim", but added "it never transcends reverent pastiche, down to the hackneyed sounds of Morricone-style guitars". Romney concluded, "Best reason to see ''The Salvation'': its chief varmint, played with ornery glint and bristling whiskers by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who has the sleepy-eyed malignity of vintage western heavy Jack Elam".

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Salvation (film), The 2014 films 2014 Western (genre) films Danish drama films British Western (genre) films 2010s English-language films English-language Danish films English-language South African films 2010s Danish-language films Films directed by Kristian Levring Films with screenplays by Anders Thomas Jensen Films shot in Gauteng Warner Bros. films South African drama films 2014 drama films Danish Western (genre) films South African Western (genre) films British multilingual films Danish multilingual films South African multilingual films 2010s British films Foreign films set in the United States