Yet the film has a unique feel and an intense visual flair that goes along with its violent self-awareness.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 25, 2022

There is a story buried under all this dirt and grime, and it is a fairly interesting one, but writer/director Kristian Levring doesn't seem too interested in it.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 13, 2021

It's worth watching on mute and on repeat for the cinematography alone.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 31, 2019

Though it talks loftily of Westward expansion and the pioneer spirit, it is in essence a picture in thrall to the masters of pulp; from the combustible Spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone to the unfussy American grit of Walter Hill.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 4, 2019

There may be great ugliness lurking inside the soul of every man walking around in "The Salvation," but Levring brings it out beautifully.

| Nov 15, 2018

An excellent entertainment that revels in Western movie cliches, its social commentary subtle and maybe a little subversive.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 28, 2018

The Salvation is a gorgeous-looking western with no other aims than being a gorgeous-looking western.

| Aug 24, 2017

It could be Danish filmmaker Kristian Levring's answer to the spaghetti western (this one shot in South Africa with American landscapes CGIed into the background) with a sensibility that echoes the savage frontier novels of Cormac McCarthy.

| Mar 9, 2017

It's dull. It's literally, if not metaphorically, bloodless.

| Sep 21, 2016

The pace of the film is slow, tense and anxious, built upon a motivation for revenge between two antithetical men, who are united through a shared destructive ideology, cementing the absurdity of human ideals.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 12, 2016

The Salvation is an enjoyable film, especially in terms of old-style genre filmmaking. It will certainly become a form of salvation itself, among the hordes of CGI blockbusters and senseless horror flicks that have taken over the theaters this summer.

| Mar 1, 2016

There's little to really complain about, save a couple of instances of iffy scripting, but the overall sense of familiarity leaves the whole thing feeling not much more than efficiently done.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 26, 2016

The movie as a whole is good, not great, but Mikkelsen elevates it, as does Morgan who plays one of the better frothing Western villains we've seen in awhile.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 2, 2016

in the grand tradition of Sergio Leone and his Spaghetti Westerns set in the American Old West but shot in Europe...enriched by a fine score by Kasper Winding that keeps the tension at a fever pitch with fine performances by Mads Mikkelson and Eva Green.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Dec 29, 2015

The Salvation flaunts its synthetic capabilities -- whis is to say, it goes right to the point -- while subjecting its traditional spaghetti western plot to modern elements. [Full Review in Spanish]

| Dec 16, 2015

Writer-director Kristian Levring says there are 62 different references to classic Westerns in his own oater "The Salvation." Perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay his film is that I never looked for them. I was too busy enjoying the film.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 25, 2015

With the help of two charismatic stars, it does conjure up its share of evocative genre moments.

| Jun 29, 2015

Levring plays out his generic premise at a grindingly slow pace.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 29, 2015

Mikkelsen in a Danish Western holds promise, but computer-aided style detracts and distracts

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 24, 2015

A gratifyingly old-fashioned Western of the sort Hollywood long ago gave up making.

| Apr 24, 2015