Film

In a Valley of Violence

Name: In a Valley of Violence
Genre: Action, Drama, Western
Released: 2016
Cast: Ethan Hawke, John Travolta, Taissa Farmiga, James Ransone, Karen Gillan

A lean, dusty revenge Western where Ethan Hawke's taciturn drifter rolls into a corrupt town to settle a blood debt. Writer-director Ti West makes something intimate from genre bones: tense, character-driven, unpretentious. It's for people who want their Westerns small-scale and morally complicated, not epic.

TMDb rating

3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like slow-burn Westerns where dialogue is sparse, the landscape feels lonely, and violence arrives with weight and consequence, closer in spirit to Ti West's measured dread than to a shootout spectacle.

Skip it if you want a brisk plot or a lot of gunfire, since it lingers on silences and quiet exchanges, and its pacing can feel deliberate to the point of sluggish for viewers after momentum.

What it asks of you: Roughly an hour and forty minutes of patience, with long stretches of watching a man think and wait before anything breaks open, and a tone that stays grim rather than playful.

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