Tuesday’s Top Trailer: The Salvation

Welcome back to a weekly feature here at Movies with Abe, Tuesday's Top Trailer. One of my favorite parts about going to see movies is the series of trailers that airs beforehand and, more often than not, the trailer is far better than the actual film. Each week, I'll be sharing a trailer I've recently seen. Please chime in with comments on what you think of the trailer and how you think the movie is going to be.

The Salvation – Opening TBD

I stumbled upon this international trailer, which premiered about a month ago, while browsing Movie-List.com for something exciting. This looks like an epic and relatively ridiculous Western, and certainly an international production. The story is a grand period piece, following a pair of Danish settlers to America and the lawlessness that follows when one of them avenges his murdered family. The casting is simply terrific, particularly the two Danish stars. Mads Mikkelsen and Mikael Persbrandt have both delivered astonishing performances in Susanne Bier films, “After the Wedding” and “In a Better World,” respectively, and I’m sure they’ll deliver above-average performances here in this action spectacle. Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Eva Green, and, most interestingly, soccer star Eric Cantona round out a colorful cast. It’s been a while since a major Western has been released theatrically, and this kind of big-sale production is exactly what could make it great. My main concern is that IMDB lists a runtime of 89 minutes, which doesn’t necessarily spell doom, but instead suggests that it might be airy and too short rather than fully delving into the depth and vast nature of its universe. This comes from Danish director Kristian Levring, who has made an English-language film before. Any Western film fan knows that you don’t have to be American to make the ultimate Western, since Sergio Leone made three of the most classic and memorable Westerns, “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More,” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” I’m sure this won’t be as great as those, but here’s hoping that maybe this will be terrific too.