'The Power of the Dog' is an austere deconstruction of the western genre which despite the presence of stars of the calibre of Benedict Cumberbatch and Kirsten Dunst suffers from the malaise that blights so many modern westerns of an uncompromising lack of pace and a concentration on mood at the expense of action.
As usual the landscape is lovely, but most of the performances are framed in the middle distance, everyone speaks in hushed tones with hardly a word above a whisper, with the usual lack of overt action that passes these days for profundity; briefly enlivened by Miss Dunst's attempts to play the Radetzky March on the piano, which Cumberpatch turns into a duet on the banjo.
As usual the landscape is lovely, but most of the performances are framed in the middle distance, everyone speaks in hushed tones with hardly a word above a whisper, with the usual lack of overt action that passes these days for profundity; briefly enlivened by Miss Dunst's attempts to play the Radetzky March on the piano, which Cumberpatch turns into a duet on the banjo.