It's more than a good thing that we've gotten beyond the formulaic Westerns of the Thirties, Forties, Fifties and Sixties. The last couple decades or so have seen a host of revisionist Westerns that capture the real grit and grime of an era gone by, with films like "Unforgiven", "3:10 to Yuma" and "Appaloosa" coming immediately to mind. Romantic notions of a solitary life lived on the trail are quickly dispelled by the murderous intentions of outlaws living from day to day and taking their spoils as they come.
The unlikely pairing of young Scot Jay Cavendish (Jody Smit-McPhee) and gunslinger Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender) defies normal Western conventions, and as we come to learn, Silas has an ulterior motive for befriending the naïve young traveler. The object of Jay's love is wanted for murder along with her father, as the Rosses attempt to elude a host of bounty hunters and killers in the American West of the 1870's. Silas is one of these bounty men.
The story turns normal Western conventions on their head, as early on, Silas inhumanely leaves two orphaned children to fend for themselves on the prairie. That their mother was shot in the back by Jay Cavendish seems to be of no concern, a coming of age moment for the young Scotsman who must live with his guilt and keep moving because he has no other options.
The irony of the finale occurs when Rose Ross (Caren Pistorius) reflexively shoots her former beau while under attack by Payne's marauders. She offers brief redemption by secretly handing off her weapon to the dying Cavendish who ends the attack by fatally shooting Payne (Ben Mendelsohn). Coming full circle, Silas takes up with the young woman to start a new life, complete with the orphans who made it as far as he had. The ending perhaps is a concession to tying things up in a neat package and may not ring entirely true for some viewers, though it allows Silas to fulfill his character as an honorable man.
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