Based on the novel Desert Stake-Out by Harry Whittington, this slow-burn western set in 1872’s Arizona gets plenty right, but has a tendency to plod where it could have giddy-ed up. Our hero is one Merrick Beckford, played by Myles Clohessy (son of character actor Robert Clohessy), who has been entrusted by William H Macy (in a single-scene cameo) with a wagonload of medical supplies in need of a courier.
Along the way, Merrick encounters a father-son duo, Mule (Thomas Jane) and Billy (Ryan Masson), a wrong ’un called Edmund (Armie Hammer, appearing on screen for the first time since 2022’s Death on the Nile), and a wounded husband (Eli Brown) and defenceless wife (Mary Stickley). As obvious weak link Billy, Masson is particularly good; poor decision-making feels written into his physicality and way of being in the world, and you’re just waiting to see how this weird little guy is going to mess up.
There’s probably at least one too many of the others, though. Clohessy, Brown, Jane and Hammer make for a quartet of handsome guys, playing varying shades on the moral spectrum. Attempts have been made to disguise said handsomeness under layers of grizzle and grime, but any one of them could and has played the hero. Because this is a film determined to be character-driven, it takes time to unravel their various issues, giving rise to a surfeit of talky scenes – somewhat at odds with a genre whose greatest poetic strength was always the ability of a man of few words to telegraph endless meaning with a lingering glance.
The model here should perhaps have been the Ranown Cycle: inexpensive but beautiful and brisk character-driven westerns none of which are longer than 80 minutes. Still, Frontier Crucible does look lovely, with plenty of evocative shots of Monument Valley and, while gorehounds may feel they have to wait too long for it, there’s some effectively staged violence reminiscent of 2015 breakout hit Bone Tomahawk, with whom it shares some of the same creative team.
• Frontier Crucible is on digital platforms from 2 February.
