For many years now Venice has been a respectful platform for those big-name directors of the 1970s and early ’80s who are happy to go back into the fray long after those juicy studio budgets dried up: Brian De Palma, William Friedkin, Paul Verhoeven, John Carpenter and — to a lesser extent — George Romero all found a home here for their late-period passion projects. Walter Hill, now 80, joins their ranks with an improbably youthful horse opera, and while it shows up the limitations of both writing and shooting a Western in the modern age (concessions to modern sensitivities have to be made, and digital cinematography somehow just doesn’t cut it with the subject matter), it’s nevertheless a wickedly enjoyable genre romp and full of violent surprises.
