While the 21st-century movie landscape has, to date, been dominated by superheroes, sequels, and animated fare, Westerns never go totally out of style. Offering battles between good and evil, right and wrong, that speak to issues of sacrifice, resilience, selfishness, regret, treachery, duty, individualism, and togetherness, they’re rugged vehicles for timeless American themes, and all of those concerns are in strong supply in The Dead Don’t Hurt . The story of an immigrant man and woman trying to make a life for themselves on the unforgiving plains, writer/director/star Viggo Mortensen ’s sophomore behind-the-camera effort occasionally stumbles along its well-worn path.
Still, courtesy of his and Vicky Krieps’ excellent lead performances, it delivers moving measures of the genre’s beauty, brutality, and sorrow. The Dead Don’t Hurt , which hits theaters May 31, begins at the end, with Danish carpenter Holger Olsen (Mortensen) sitting at the deathbed of his beloved French-Canadian partner Vivienne Le Coudy (Krieps), holding her hand and closing her eyes as she dreams her last dream of a knight in shining armor riding a horse through a sunlit forest. Vivienne is buried in a grave beside their remote home, and as Holger tends to this forlorn work, he’s watched by his young son Vincent (Atlas Green).
The two are soon visited by riders led by Rudolph Schiller (Danny Huston), mayor of the nearby town, who informs him that six men have recently been murdered, and that .
