Movie Review: In a Valley of Violence

In a Valley of Violence (2016) **** / *****

Directed by: Ti West.

Written by: Ti West.

Starring: Ethan Hawke (Paul), John Travolta (Marshal), Taissa Farmiga (Mary-Anne), James Ransone (Gilly), Karen Gillan (Ellen), Toby Huss (Harris), Tommy Nohilly (Tubby), Larry Fessenden (Roy), Michael Davis (Dollar Bill), James Cady (Bartender), Burn Gorman (Priest), K.H. Sweeney (William T. Baxter).

 

Director Ti West seems to be dead set on making genre films that are both in a classical style, but with a touch of absurdist modern details. He has made his name in horror films like House of the Devil (a kind of ultra-violent, absurdist film that would have felt at home in the 1980s), The Innkeepers (a more classically structured 1960s haunted house film) and The Salvation (a found footage film, about a Jonestown-like cult). With In a Valley of Violence, he has stretched out to the Western – specifically the spaghetti Western, because like those films, In a Valley of Violence is both ultra-violent, and yet deliberately off-kilter. It’s got a strange streak of humor running through it, and when of the great choices the film makes is that its star – Ethan Hawke – doesn’t seem in on the joke. Everyone else is dialed up, but he’s dialed down. It works.

 

Hawke plays Paul, who we first see alone in the desert, with his horse and an adorable dog. He comes across a drunken Irish priest, who tries to rob him – but quickly learns Paul isn’t the type of guy you rob. The priest does tell him about a town – just over that valley there – that is full of sin, and warns Paul off. Paul doesn’t want to go there – he’s on his way to Mexico to escape his past (which we will slowly learn) – but he, his horse and his dog all need water. How bad can it be if he just gets in and gets out, real quick?

 

We know what’s going to happen – or else we wouldn’t have a movie. Paul angers a hotheaded idiot named Gilly (James Ransone), just by his mere presence, and challenges him to a fight that Paul doesn’t want any part of, but eventually he obliges. He humiliates Gilly – which isn’t a good idea, because Gilly’s dad is the Marshal (John Travolta). The Marshal knows his son is an idiot, knows he probably got what was coming to him, and is content to let Paul be on his way – but not without a warning. The Marshal is a former military man – and deduces so is Paul – but that Paul is most likely a deserter. The Marshal won’t make a big deal of it if he leaves and never comes back. Paul is more than happy to be on his way – but Gilly and his friends aren’t as smart as Paul or The Marshal – and soon they’ve committed a heinous act of violence that Paul feels he has to avenge. So that the movie is a complete sausage fest, West has two female characters – sisters Ellen (Karen Gillan), a bit of dim bulb, engaged to Gilly, and the younger Mary-Anne (Taissa Farmiga) who views Paul as a romantic figure – her way out of this horrible town.

 

Yes, the plot of the movie is simple and straight forward – and something you have seen in a million other Westerns. It works because, well, clichés sometimes work and West is smart enough to serve genre hounds precisely what they want here – a classic revenge Western, with a lot of blood. But it works better than it otherwise would have because of West’s sly-humor peppered throughout the film. When Travolta first comes on screen, with his wooden leg and big mustache, I assumed he was cast because Kurt Russell said no (Russell is probably the Western genre’s modern standard bearer) – but no, West knew what he was doing casting Travolta. While he seems menacing at first, Travolta’s character ends up being perhaps the only sane one in the film – and he almost laughs at the absurdity of everything that is happening. He doesn’t want to kill Paul – but he cannot have someone going through his town murdering people either. Travolta, at his best, is perfectly suited for these types of characters – ones that almost seem to smirk at the audience at let them know that yes, this really is silly. That nicely undercuts the rest of the movie – and makes it clear that all the machismo is bullshit posturing. The movie will feed it to you, but it knows it’s silly.

 

Hawke is also well cast. While the villains he is going up against are almost comic in their roles (one of them is played by Larry Fessenden, so you know he’s going to be creepy). But Hawke mainly plays it straight. He’s as good as it gets in this type of role – tired and beat down, but still capable of violence, even if that’s not what he wants – there is a good sequence when he first arrives back in town to get revenge where he keeps backing out at the last second before he kills someone – he has to slowly screw up his courage.

 

Ti West is a talented filmmaker – still searching for that kind of crossover hit that works with mainstream audiences. He is slowly building up a good reputation though – a filmmaker who respects the genre films that came before him, but is intent on twisting them just enough to come up with something different. In a Valley of Violence is his best one yet.