Outside of Mel Brooks, comedy-Westerns are a tough horse to saddle. Just ask Seth MacFarlane how difficult they can be. At this past Sundance Film Festival, John Maclean struck the perfect balance of grit and humor with Slow West, which stars his frequent collaborator Michael Fassbender in the gunslinger role. Now as the film prepares to ride off to Tribeca the first trailer has been released.
Also starring Kodi Smit-McPhee, Ben Mendelsohn, Caren Pistorius, and Rory McCann, the film centers on an awkward young man who recruits a mysterious outlaw (Fassbender) for a cross-country trek to find his lost love. The journey across the American frontier is dangerous and bloody, but also full of lighter moments and a number of hilarious sight gags. I also found it to be incredibly smart, saying in my review that it "slyly comments on familiar themes in the Western genre, from the inherent evil within man to the cultural devastation done to the Native Americans as this country was built."
Slow West hits theaters on May 15th.
