Cinematic Releases: The Dead Don't Hurt (2023) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of Shout Studios

Back in 2021 mid-COVID pandemic, Danish-American actor Viggo Mortensen mounted his first film production in the director’s chair with the intensely personal and affecting dementia/domestic abuse drama Falling starring Lance Henriksen in arguably a career-best performance.  Though the actor had to make some compromises with respect to casting himself in the lead role in order to secure the film would be made, it represented a new forward step for microbudget indie cinema with a unique and assured new voice in filmmaking.  In that semi-autobiographical film, Viggo Mortensen in addition to producing and writing also composed the film’s subtly mournful original score and all but proved himself as a surprisingly accomplished and nuanced auteur keen on telling real world stories about difficult family situations.
 
Three years later, Mortensen is back with a new film as a writer-director: the Shout Studios distributed American western epic The Dead Don’t Hurt, a period piece set in 1860s San Francisco at the turn of the Civil War.  Zeroing in on young Franco-Canadian woman Vivienne Le Coudy (Vicky Krieps from Phantom Thread), we see her being wooed against her wishes by a wealthy Irish art collector.  To fend off his unwanted advances and dominance, she crosses paths with Danish immigrant carpenter Holger Olsen (Viggo Mortensen) whom she quickly forms a rapport with.  Falling in love, the newly formed twosome ventures out to his remote desolate cabin in Nevada but the fiercely independent woman refuses to marry. 

 
However, things are complicated when she takes up a job as a bartender in Elk Flats which is overrun by ruthless conniving landowner Alfred Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt) and his murderous sociopathic son Weston (Solly McLeod).  Taking a shine to Vivienne recently left to fend for herself by Holger after joining the Union Army in the Civil War, Weston tracks down and sexually assaults her off camera, impregnating her in the process.  When Holger returns from the war after several years of fighting, we learn she has birthed and kept the child named Little Vincent, now five years old.  Learning of the rape, he’s thirsty for revenge but is told to lay low as Weston was ousted from town after murdering several people.  But when Vivienne comes down with syphilis as a result of the rape, his bloodlust for vengeance becomes his top priority.

 
Sizably larger in scope and historical significance than Falling as well as a kind of nonlinear deconstruction of the American western, The Dead Don’t Hurt is one of the year’s most clandestine cinematic surprises.  While the genre seems to be suffering theatrically judging from the box office failure of Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter One, films like The Thicket and now The Dead Don’t Hurt show you don’t need a lot of money or big sprawling casts to generate a compelling western saga with scope, pathos and grandeur behind it.  Lensed exquisitely in 2.35:1 scope widescreen by Danish Mister Lonely cinematographer Marcel Zyskind, the Canadian-Danish-Mexican co-production on a tight budget manages to conjure up some vast vistas on the Arri Alexa 35 camera.  The soft and subtle acoustic and strings laden score for the film by Viggo Mortensen himself echoes the gentle mournfully Old Western melodies by David Mansfield for Heaven’s Gate, giving the film a quiet aura despite the omnipresence of danger lurking about.

 
Acting wise, Mortensen has assembled quite the ensemble cast of characters including but not limited to Danny Huston, Garret Dillahunt and Ray McKinnon.  However despite the size of the cast, the film basically boils down to three central main characters Vivienne (Vicky Krieps channeling her tough independent femininity), Holger (Viggo Mortensen in an understated performance) and newcomer House of the Dragon star Solly McLeod as the nefarious psychopath who wreaks havoc on his family, Vivienne and the townsfolk in general.  Though still new to film and television, the actor exudes neurotic dangerousness and his character quickly becomes very easy to hate and fear.  Danny Huston and Viggo Mortensen are no doubt the most accomplished actors in the piece though Huston isn’t given much more to do than appear stoic and mercurial in his corrupt dealings.

 
Originally premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival before getting a limited theatrical run in the US in May 2024 followed by a June release in Denmark, like Falling before it The Dead Don’t Hurt didn’t make a dent in the scheme of box office successes.  Both movies just barely crossing the $1 million mark sadly, neither film was destined to become a huge financial gain.  Instead they’re modestly sized and paced interpersonal human dramas that harken back to the heyday of then-1970s New Hollywood when more urgent and relatable stories were being told over escapist fantasies.  Though technically a western, The Dead Don’t Hurt is far quieter and more nuanced than say a John Ford movie, a Sam Peckinpah, Sergio Leone or even Anthony Mann for that matter.  Character driven and steeped in historical drama, The Dead Don’t Hurt while intimate and small manages to be a polished and compelling American western that sidesteps the expectations of the genre while finding its own corner in the ever-ongoing period western subgenre.

--Andrew Kotwicki