{"id":20692,"date":"2020-11-11T10:24:37","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T10:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/mobile\/?p=20692"},"modified":"2021-02-21T03:56:16","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T03:56:16","slug":"let-him-go-review-kevin-costner-and-diane-lane-carry-a-throwback-western","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shows4.com\/?p=20692","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Let Him Go\u2019 Review: Kevin Costner and Diane Lane Carry a Throwback Western"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nIf Zack Snyder\u2019s superhero movies got one thing right \u2014 and that\u2019s a big \u201cif\u201d \u2014 it\u2019s that Kevin Costner and Diane Lane are the Platonic ideal of white, decent, midwestern parents. Bright actors on their own, these two stars transform into some kind of denim supernova whenever they\u2019re hired to share the same galaxy; the patriotic energy of their combined screen presence is powerful enough to fuel a Ford commercial and make you want to call your parents \u201cma\u201d and \u201cpa\u201d for a few weird days. But while Snyder recognized that Costner and Lane spark an old-fashioned vision of American values more potent than even Superman could express alone, the franchise-oriented \u201cMan of Steel\u201d couldn\u2019t afford to consider that such a vision can only exist in hindsight.
\nThomas Bezucha\u2019s \u201cLet Him Go\u201d doesn\u2019t have that problem. Adapted from the Larry Watson novel of the same name, this terse and simple Western thriller casts Costner and Lane as a retired couple in early \u201960s Montana whose marriage is tested at a time when America\u2019s aspirational self-image is about to be undone by the tribalism of its design. Here is a tanned hide of a movie about the violence that results from conflicting ideas of what this country should be, and while the writer\/director of \u201cThe Family Stone\u201d lacks the chops to tell this story with the suspense it demands (or the hard-nosed focus required to mine something new from the myth it deconstructs), he fully understands the symbolic power of seeing these actors lose something they can never get back.
\nUnfolding like a cross between \u201cThe Searchers\u201d and a bloody episode of \u201cThis Is Us,\u201d \u201cLet Him Go\u201d introduces three generations of the Blackledge family living together in relative harmony before it tears them apart just a few minutes later. Things aren\u2019t perfect between Margaret (Lane) and her daughter-in-law Lorna (\u201cPrivate Life\u201d breakout Kayli Carter) \u2014 an early moment of maternal disagreement anticipates the mess of \u201cmother knows best\u201d tension to come \u2014 and we wonder how emotionally accessible a stone-faced sheriff like George (Costner, in subdued \u201cYellowstone\u201d mode) could\u2019ve been to his son Ryan, but the whole clan is united by their love for baby Jimmy.\n<\/div>\n
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