LET HIM GO, Blending Family Drama with Western Thriller

Family. Revenge. And a vast desert setting as far as the eye can see. These three components constitute a truly unique characteristic that can usually be associated with the western genre . And even though these three components are used continuously,  westerns never look bored or boring. Maybe so, but very rarely. And these three components are also present in  Let Him Go , a film with its various western elements  and a background no longer in the cowboy era, but in a fairly modern era, making it a  neo-Western .

Now is the 1960's. George Blackledge (Kevin Costner) is a retired former sheriff and with his wife Margaret (Diane Lane), they are a pair of parents who live with their son James (Ryan Bruce), their son-in-law Lorna (Kayli Carter) and their grandson Jimmy in a farm, where they take care of the horses they have. Their peaceful life is finally shattered when James dies in an accident while riding a wild horse.

Next we see Margaret and George getting ready to wear their dark, neat clothes, and with their gloomy faces we think they are going to their child's funeral. But no, it turns out that it's years later and they are going to attend Lorna's wedding to a man named Donnie Weboy (Will Brittain). It turned out that Margaret and George's lack of enthusiasm was justified: Donnie was a violent person. Didn't even tell them that Donnie was taking Lorna and Jimmy to move to his mother's house, which was quite far away.

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At the beginning of the film , Let Him Go doesn't really see the thriller side of  things  , but the film looks like a family drama where we follow a pair of parents trying to find their grandchildren. We see them drive the car and explore the vast area around, see them staying at a local police prison (clean and safe, George is a former sheriff after all), meet a lonely Indian, Peter (Booboo Stewart) and reminisce about the past together about their child.

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It is during moments like that we see how both Kevin Costner and Diane Lane play their characters with a heart, emotion and touch. Yes, George's character is someone who doesn't talk much and prefers to act rather than speak, but his every action shows that George is also someone who really loves his family. The dynamics of the two are really good and it is not difficult for us to always want to support them along the way.

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But it's a  thriller , and that side only appears in about 40 minutes of the film's run, when the two run into a member of the Weboy family, Bill (Jeffrey Donovan). It didn't take long for George and Margaret to realize that the Weboy family was not a good family, especially after meeting Donnie's mother, Blanche (Lesley Manville) and his big brothers. This is where the film starts to get tense. And here is where they will save Lorna and Jimmy from the Weboy family.

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Before forgetting, I will say that the mix between emotional family drama and  thriller is not very smooth here. Not that it doesn't work, but sometimes I feel something sticking when they change the tone of the film. Both of them are indeed heavy themes, but they also collide with each other so that for a few moments the film seems to be stuck and in the end the film feels like it has taken too long to run.

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But for each, the two themes are quite successful. If you are in an emotional moment, this film manages to present some touching moments. And when the tense moment begins, this film manages to produce a gripping nuance, especially if we find out that both George and Margaret are no longer young while the Weboys are not only outnumbering but also still have some young and intimidating looking family members.

Let Him Go also looks like it hasa very strong western  element in terms of cinematography, with director Thomas Bezucha and cinematographer Guy Godfree showing and highlighting the vast aspects of the area the film is treading on, making use of as many natural elements around it as possible and of course some of the scenes that are visible. taken with the sun behind her, like when Margaret was riding a horse with the sun shining from the side, something that is common in western filmsand something I will never get bored of.

George's character here also reminds me of some of Kevin Costner's previous roles such as the western  film  Silverado or even the gangster  film  The Untouchables . He does have a tough aura and the better person to shoot first then ask questions later. Seeing him play George is like a finale to a bunch of characters he's played before, or at least that's how I feel seeing him here, and that's probably what makes him so interesting in  Let Him Go .