Edinburgh International Film Festival 2016 Forsaken *****

Now please understand, Westerns are not this reviewer’s thing.  Or gratuitous violence or the brooding menace which come with the genre.  But Jon Cassar’s Forsaken is simply magnificent. 

A classic morality tale of the complexities of good versus evil, John Henry Clayton (Kiefer Sutherland) comes home to to find his mother dead and his pastor father (Donald Sutherland) unforgiving of the long absence which followed his entry into the Civil War and subsequent gun-slinging years.  Enter a convincing Demi Moore as his unrequited love now married with a child and the land-grabbing baddies led by our own Brian Cox and the superbly understated Michael Wincott.  The story unfolds into a somewhat predictable but wholly gripping tale.  A beautiful soundtrack orchestrated by Jonathan Goldsmith complements and enhances the superb cinematography.

[tweet_box design=”default”]Forsaken is a surprisingly moving and beguiling must-see.[/tweet_box]