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An entire decade has slipped by since the release of John Maclean\u2019s debut feature, the frisky meta western Slow West<\/em>, which, if nothing else, presented a savvy operator hankering to get his mitts dirty in the world of genre. His belated return to writing and directing retains a dash of eccentricity and a fondness for folding up and repurposing convention like it were a little origami bird, but this sadly feels a lot more\u00a0like a roughedged first film than Slow West <\/em>did way back when.<\/p>\n Drawing on the macho, high-plains sagas of Sergio Leone as well as Akira Kurosawa\u2019s games of psychological chess, Tornado<\/em> follows a Japanese father-daughter duo trundling down the muddied byways of rural Scotland in the late 1700s and plying their trade as performers of a samurai-themed puppet show. She, named Tornado (K\u014dki), is bored with her lot, while he (Takehiro Hira), embraces the hushed nobility of this artisan profession.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not long before a hoard of gurning, grime-covered goons, each tooled-up with their own signature weapon, are chasing her across the landscape, because she pounced on the split-second opportunity to relieve them of two sacks of gold coins, the plunder from a criminal enterprise and en route to be divvyed out among them. The gang is led by Tim Roth\u2019s Sugarman, who is basically Tim Roth were Tim Roth a poetically-inclined 18th century miscreant, who is at loggerheads with his son, Little Sugar (Jack Lowden), who wants nothing more than to get one over on his abusive pop and his pals. Maybe this snafu involving Tornado might be the right time to stick the knife in?<\/p>\n You can see what Maclean is aiming for here, but it feels as if he\u2019s carefully selected a few modest ingredients, and rather than combining them to concoct a subtle, gourmet dish, we have a few strong flavours that don\u2019t really work in concert. The heist\/chase mechanics are decent, but it\u2019s all too schematic, and the twists are often stealthy plot devices rather than ways into the drama.<\/p>\n On the atmospherics front, the film fares much better, with Robbie Ryan\u2019s cinematography drawing out an autumnal haze of the spartan landscape, and some lovely little folksy production design embellishments from Elizabeth El-Kadhi. Part of the story takes in an encampment of travelling players, and the design of the mobile lodging and painted signage is a joy. It\u2019s just a shame that these elements have so little to add to the story.<\/p>\n The real problem here is a script which favours bathetic proclamations over any real desire to get under the skins of the characters. Tornado herself as the feisty heroine is tragically one dimensional, and the only real tension in the film derives from the testy father-son relationship between Roth and Lowden. And even that comes to a head in a way that\u2019s both anticlimactic and illogical.<\/p>\n It\u2019s laudable that Maclean wants to breathe new life into unabashed \u201cB\u201d material, but unfortunately the idiosyncratic touches have usurped rather than bolstered what should be robust, time-honoured noir framework, and we\u2019re left with a film which leaves only a superficial impression and little sense of purpose.<\/p>\n To keep celebrating the craft of film, we have to rely on the support of our members. Join Club LWLies today and receive access to a host of benefits.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nGet more Little White Lies<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n