There’s been a slew of westerns in recent years with everything from the daft Netflix original, The Ridiculous Six, to the more impressive True Grit and The Salvation. 2016 looks set to start off more towards the positive side of the scale with Quinten Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight, along with Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant, and it will be followed by more serious intent in yet another Kurt Russell western, Bone Tomahawk.
Like the other Wild Wild West outings this year, it’s anything but a traditional western, although it does have more similarities with the legacy of the genre than either of them. It sees Russell leading a posse out on horseback to track down a vicious enemy, which sounds a lot like an old school Western adventure, but what they find proves to be a lot more sinister than they had imagined, making it more of a thriller in nature.
Release date
Bone Tomahawk will be making its way to the big screen in the UK on Friday the 19th February 2016, following on from previous US release date of the 23rd October 2015. It’ll be screened in 2D and it will be released on the same weekend in the UK as The Finest Hours, Freehold, How To Be Single, Orthodox and Triple 9, so it won’t be without its competition, but there aren’t any massive blockbusters out to soak up all of the box office action.
Plot
The story sees Kurt Russell (The Hateful Eight) in the role of small town Sherriff Franklin Hunt, who is forced to pull together an unconventional posse to hunt down a group of cannibal savages who have kidnapped a girl from the settlement. However, it doesn’t take long for the group to ride into trouble, taking the plot into thriller territory as nervy gunfights, ambushes and night attacks begin to plague their mission, threatening their lives as much as the success of their rescue attempt.
You can see some of the grim action for yourself in the trailer below, which features everything from trigger loaded intensity to savage attacks and what looks like odd mutilation. Sherriff Hunt are in for a very grim few days out in the barren plains, but the question is whether or not they make it back alive at all, let alone saving the missing girl.
Cast
Kurt Russell will be joined in the film by Patrick Wilson (The A-Team Movie), Matthew Fox (Lost) and Richard Jenkins (The Cabin In The Woods). The cast also includes Lili Simmons, David Arquette (Scream), Kathryn Morris (Moneyball), and the great Sean Young, who you might recognise from Blade Runner.
Production
The film has been written and directed by S. Craig Zahler, who makes his directorial debut on the film and only his second writing outing following up on 2011’s French horror, The Incident. The film has been produced by Jack Heller and Dallas Sonnier from Caliber Media.
First impressions
The Bone Tomahawk trailer below looks pretty full on, so we’re expecting this to be an impressive western thriller. Having already arrived in the US, we know it’s picked up a fair few good reviews, so it should be one to look out for when it gets its UK release date at the end of February 2016.
