The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Blistering performances.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

The thing about this movie is that you have to have some "stick-to-it-iveness" to see it through to the end and really appreciate the story. The first time I tried to watch it I failed. I gave up about halfway in. It had put me to sleep a couple of times and I just wasn't able to focus on it. It seemed overly slow-paced; it dragged. But there was something there. Something needed to be revealed. And that's the key. There is, indeed, something there. Jane (played by Natalie Portman) is actually a very interesting character, and her story is slowly (very slowly) revealed in a series of flashbacks. In the present, she's married to a man (Noah Emmericah) who was once an outlaw and is being hunted down by the outlaws he used to run with, and she has a five year old daughter. With her husband shot and wounded and the outlaws coming, she needs help, and she runs to Dan Frost (Joel Edgerton) - the man to whom she was once engaged, who by happy (perhaps too happy and therefore too contrived) just happens to live in town. Together, they take on the Bishop Boys.Jane's past is what makes this movie work. If you can wait for it to be revealed, it makes Jane a much more interesting and sympathetic character. Without giving anything essential away, let's just say that in the past she and Dan had a life and a future that was thrown into turmoil by the outbreak of the Civil War. The rest of the flashbacks stitch together what happened to both Jane and Dan and eventually do lead you up to an explanation of what's happening in the present. Her past is slowly revealed, so you have to be patient as you watch, but I thought (the second time I watched this) that it was worth the wait.If you go into this expecting a typical western full of gunfights, you will be disappointed. It really is more about how Jane's past led to the present, and there's really very little gunplay in this until the last 20 minutes or so of the movie. There were apparently a lot of production problems involved with this (cast changes, etc.) and there are some who might be evaluating the movie because of its production history rather than its actual quality. The sets are also fairly minimalistic. There's nothing really fancy about this movie. With a budget of about $25 million, it's fairly low budget compared to some of the well known movie released around the same time, and that does show in the sets, which are limited and bare. But the performances - especially by Portman and Edgerton) are very good. (7/10)

Was looking forward do a decent western and sadly very disapointed.it starts of it seemed to me in riddles , you begin wondering how it came to the situation it does,its quite confusing andbi found it very dry.everything in the movie had been done before and it lacked atmosphere.i would actually class it as a barbara cartland novel rather than a western ,the main stars spend to much time looking over the past to make the present film intersting.after about an hour of reminissing we actually get to some action and then it seems the film is all over.also as a person who has shot pistols i find it very annoying when you have a looking down the barrel scene you can clearly see the gun is empty.anyway i cant tell you a lot more because there is nothing to tell ,in fact it was so dull i cant even remember the ending and i only saw it last night.no where near brutal enough for a western ,and an uninteresting story.

To me, this movie makes a significant impression as it is being in our age of fewer western films because it plays realistically like an old authentic cowboy story used to be and supplies good scenery and props too. Jane, played by Natalie Portman, is convincing as an authentic woman of the frontier living on a tough untamed land where there is not much law and even less sympathy. Acting out of her bravery she is not invulnerable, yet she is believable as she perseveres through hard and traumatic times. Since she is striking out on her own, Jane gets caught up in several dangerous settings. The man acting as her former love plays great in a role where the two people need each other. The storyline could almost be seen as a love triangle plot with some twists. This film raises the audience's spirit as pertaining to the quality of Jane's character and her former fiancée's. It is a well done, recent cowboy saga reminiscent of some classic early westerns. The film has a good dose of action but one needs to understand the fill-in information flashbacks to appreciate it properly even though the plot is easy to grasp. One area of repulsion I felt in the film action though, was when the main bad guy was torturing a cowboy or farm hand to death in a semi-graphic episode of the movie. Even so, this show has a bittersweet ending overall and I recommend it to romance and western enthusiasts as well as older movie goers.

Bill Hammond (Noah Emmerich) with four bullet holes makes it back to his wife Jane (Natalie Portman,co-producer) and warns her the Bishop boys are coming. Jane tries to get help but her husband has a bounty on him. She eventually gets help from Dan Frost (Joel Edgerton) a man who she was once engaged. We know it is New Mexico 1871 and everything else is a mystery. Who are the Bishop boys? What is the history of this conflict? We are feed the information slowly getting half the story at about 30 minutes and the other half at about an hour.This is a fairly typical western. There is some shooting, killing, horses, and drama. I thought there was too much drama. Natalie Portman reminded me of Demi Moore, tough girl in her performance. Yes, Jane got a gun, but that wasn't overly significant to the tale. I think the author may have been influenced by the Aerosmith song, which didn't play during the closing credits either, but I couldn't help thinking about it. The mystery aspect and flashbacks ate up much of the movie as we awaited the final confrontation with over formula results.Guide: F-words. Implied rape. No nudity.