The Salvation review: Mads Mikkelsen film for western fans only

Director: Kristian Levring; Screenwriter: Kristian Levring, Anders Thomas, Jensen; Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Eva Green, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Eric Cantona, Jonathan Pryce; Running time: 92 mins; Certificate: 15

Every now and then a western will come along that threatens to revive the genre, but The Salvation - although stunningly photographed with cutting-edge technology - isn't one of those. In many ways it's resolutely old-fashioned and although putting a Dane (Mads Mikkelsen) at the heart of the story is an unconventional move, it's also an act of defiance, or indifference - a refusal to pander to a modern, mainstream audience. In short, this is a western strictly for people who love westerns.

Revenge is the spark for a traditionally simple plot that uses archetypes and clichés like a sort of cinematic comfort blanket, except that shocking bursts of violence keep it from being too warmly nostalgic. The worst of it comes at the beginning when Jon (Mikkelsen) arrives at a railway station to meet the wife and young son he left behind in Denmark seven years ago, but on the last leg of their journey, they're forced to share a stagecoach with a couple of rabid desperadoes who rape and kill the woman and execute the boy too.

These scenes are harrowing, though not graphic; the camera sticks with Jon who is thrown off the stagecoach and left to imagine these horrors, before catching up in their aftermath. More blood is spilled and it's the repercussions of this shootout that shape the rest of the film, pitting Jon - the classic loner - against local villain Delarue (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who gets to mutter the immortal words: "You killed my brother." Eva Green plays the widow of the rapist in yet another role that trades on her striking gothic features to thicken the mood. She is mute since having her tongue cut out by Indians and is now deemed property of Delarue.

There are no surprises in this story, only the anticipation of justice being done one bad guy at a time until the final showdown. Mikkelsen, as always, is an imposing presence who burns with intensity without seeming to do very much and Morgan is well-matched as his adversary. Eric Cantona is just distracting as one of the henchmen, otherwise Danish director Kristian Levring steers clear of irony and achieves a hauntingly dark, brooding atmosphere.

There are no surprises in this story, only the anticipation of justice being done one bad guy at a time until the final showdown.

An advantage of working with modern cameras and post-production techniques is that vast, familiar landscapes are made new again and even more arresting in their beauty. Levring has strayed very far from the stark naturalism of his Dogme roots to present a glossy, hyper-stylised vision of the Old West, while also doffing his cap to the old masters - particularly director John Ford (The Searchers) - with in-to-out framing and deep focus lenses that pick up every small detail in a wide-angle frame. He even uses Ford's favourite location, Monument Valley (which is seamlessly transposed onto South African desert using CGI), to provide an eerie backdrop.

Arguably, the point of separation for this film and westerns of old is that very nightmarish quality, which is at odds with the rose-tinted view of a filmmaker like Kevin Costner. Perhaps it takes a Dane to see that America didn't always fulfil its reputation as the Land of Promise.