Series Review: "Godless" (2017).

"Welcome to no man's land." This is Godless. This Western drama miniseries created, written and directed by Scott Frank. A ruthless outlaw terrorizes the West in search of a former member of his gang, who's found a new life in a quiet town populated only by women.

By September 2016, Jack O'Connell, Michelle Dockery, Scoot McNairy, Merritt Wever, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Sam Waterston, Jeff Daniels, Jessica Sula and Whitney Able were cast. At the same time, principal photography commenced and wrapped in February 2017. Filming took place throughout New Mexico, including at Santa Fe Studios.

The series stars O'Connell, Dockery, McNairy, Wever, Brodie-Sangster, Waterston, Daniels, Sula and Able. As events unfold across seven hours certain storylines might proceed a little languidly for some tastes, but things are anchored by some terrific performances. The cast all bring aching vulnerability to the roles of emotionally tortured souls. Daniels and Dockery seeking new sorts of roles is admirable, but the results need a bit of tweaking. However, true to form, the series gives us a sex worker, but she's not an accessory. She's retired, and, financially speaking, she's the most powerful woman in the narrative, which makes sense.

Gritty, grimy and, at times, pretty grim, Godless is nevertheless filled with some terrific performances, a luscious T Bone Burnett soundtrack, gripping tension and some memorable dialogue. It's a great series: An old-fashioned Western revenge flick drawn out over seven splendid hours. The cinematography is gorgeous, it's well-plotted, and the actressin' is phenomenal all around. It's a well acted, gritty, dusty, uber-violent and actually clandestinely old-fashioned mash-up of all the great Westerns you ever knew and loved. For those who were looking forward to binge-watching a Western series on Netflix created by accomplished American auteurs, well it's time they got around to watching the series. For a show that promises plenty of badass women gunslingers, the show offers the same archetypal male drama we've seen before. The series has all the traditional components of the western: landscapes and pistols. And a lot of quality behind the scenes. The series doesn't change the game, but it definitely scratches the itch for fans of Westerns, world building and myth construction storytelling. The series offers compelling drama, combining a number of intriguing storylines with its classic tale of a good-hearted fugitive pursued by a vicious gang. A visual stunner packed with rip-roaring characters and classic Western elements, the series is a veritable bonanza of frontier fun. Even though the series certainly employs some familiar genre tropes and scenes of violence and romance, it still manages to surprise and subvert expectations in unique ways. The series certainly doesn't do much to subvert genre clichs. But then, westerns were never about pushing boundaries - they were about entertainment, and the series has that in abundance. For all the shock that the series squeezes out of just how far Frank is willing to go-and how far the amiable star playing him is willing to push himself-the show uses its seven often hour-long-plus episodes carefully.

Simon says Godless receives:

Also, see my review for A Walk Among the Tombstones.