Western Movie Review: The Dead Don't Hurt (2024)

THE DEAD DON’T HURT (2024)
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

Viggo Mortensen’s new Western is his second after the incredible APPALOOSA, or his third if you count HIDALGO or is fourth/fifth if you count the experimental JAUJA and EUREKA. It’s his first time directing one and only his second time behind the camera, helming a father-son drama a few years ago with promising results.

THE DEAD DON’T HURT opens with a bang, showing the villain kill more than one person in town and ride out. It’s a first scene that hints at a film like the one Viggo made with Ed Harris but the actor, an unusual leading man in today’s landscape, is up to something different with this Western. First, he gives us a story that jumps around in time and without the typical transitions to suggest such movements. The film moves quickly and sometimes without apparent connection between the present when Viggo hunts down the killer from the opening and the past when he falls in love with Vicky Krieps. He takes his time with both timelines and the deliberate pace here may turn off some viewers but I was more than happy to settle in and watch Viggo’s slow scenes play out.

These days, the Western genre has mostly turned into a series of shoot ’em up B-movies that hit Walmart shelves and then disappear on streaming besides the occassional and often disappointing theater entry like HORIZON. But this actor/director is up to something different, neither going for action or epic. He’s calling back to a more thematic, more philosophical take on the genre, similar to a film like THE HIRED HAND. His attempt is noble and the results mostly work. He’s able to show more of a woman’s experience on the frontier without a heavy-handed feminist agenda. More than her perspective, he’s able to portray a complex romantic relationship, which is rarely the focus of a Western. But the script has one fatal flaw that keeps me from loving this movie: his character’s decision to go to war. I never believed it. Viggo’s script, acting, or direction never convinced me that he would leave his wife alone like that. It did not establish his restlessness or desire to fight or devotion to his new homeland. And therefore, that one decision that sets the story on a different path never felt right to me and somewhat ruined the rest of the movie, which is otherwise quite admirable.

As always, I look forward to what Viggo does next and I hope he makes more Westerns.

Watched on Amazon

These reviews were also posted on my letterboxd account and will eventually be published on my Travis Mills filmmaker Facebook page