A polite adaptation of a bestselling novel transforms into a gory B-movie with a devilishly good performance from Lesley Manville as a Ma Barker-style villain
There’s a vital, game-changing scene in robust neo-western thriller Let Him Go that occurs as the last act beckons, one that finally reveals the true nature of what we’ve been watching up until that point. In a jolting, gonzo act of violence, the film, which initially presents itself as a polite, handsomely made, awards-aiming picture starring one Oscar winner and two nominees, lurches into a grindhouse thriller, a bombastic B-movie whose earlier pretensions of grandeur burn up into flames, quite literally, in the gory all-out finale that soon follows. It’s a fun switch-up, and one that audiences are better off preparing for as they enter, for it forgives some of the film’s clunkier early moments, rather like accepting this year’s adaptation of The Invisible Man as schlock horror instead of the sleek psycho-thriller it pretends to be.
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