The Settlers (2023)
Last year limped towards my personal cinematic conclusion with a sigh, the resigned exhale of a condemned man as the machine delivering midazolam starts whirring. I was down to a wing and a prayer, so I rented The Settlers.
Listed as one of the films of the year somewhere, in a paper which isn’t on paper. An arty, not a western, western with violence, crime and corruption by first time director Felipe Gálvez Haberle. It’s all about The Brits fucking around in the Americas in the very early 20th Century, so The Settlers certainly ticked all my boxes. Could it be my call from the Governor, a stay of execution, to pump life into an incredibly bland year of films?
I need to sort my glasses out. Not only am I way more blind than when I bought them but they’re now so old and foggy my vision is less clear than a teenager in Ted Bundy’s car boot. I guarantee you the “Ted Bundy Victim VR Experience” would sell.
That’s never good. There’s loads of metaphors and commentary on colonising and just the whole awful thing of a world of violence.
The Settlers sees itself as a serious film with a bold ambition to impress, which it does in parts, though it wanders a little and peters out. It is reminiscent of The Nightingale and Hostiles, but The Settlers never comes close to them.
Perhaps I am hard to please, possibly I’m jaded and there’s a very good chance I’m simply ungrateful.
There is one hilariously dark scene which sticks in the mind but The Settlers never raises its head above promising. Felipe Gálvez Haberle is one to watch and Sam Spruell is good. Compliments exhausted. Much like the rest of 2024, an underwhelming 6/10
CONCLAVE
WARFARE
DAY OF THE FIGHT
STRAY
SINNERS
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