A24 Films and DirecTV have released the first Slow West trailer for writer/director John Maclean’s feature directorial debut. The Western stars Kodi Smit-McPhee as an immigrant traversing the American frontier in search for the woman he loves. During his travels, he stumbles across a mysterious badass played by Michael Fassbender, and the two find themselves on the run from a gang of outlaws.

I caught the film at Sundance and it’s quite good. Maclean has crafty a dry, darkly comic take on the Western genre, and while it’s a bit slow in parts, it finishes strong with a fantastically explosive third act. This trailer does a nice job of conveying the film’s tone (it’s not straight drama, but it’s not obviously comedic either), but it does veer close to spoiling some of the movie’s twists and turns. At the end of the day, though, this is a dark comedy Western starring Michael Fassbender and Ben Mendelsohn—that’s reason enough to buy a ticket right there, and I can assure you the film is very much worth the price of admission.

Watch the first Slow West trailer below, or click over to Apple to watch in HD, and click here to read Matt’s full review. The film also stars Caren Pistorious and Rory McCann. Slow West will premiere on DirecTV on April 16th, and will be released in theaters and on iTunes on May 15th.

Here’s the official synopsis for Slow West:

At the end of the nineteenth century, 16-year-old Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) journeys across the American frontier in search of the woman he loves. He is joined by Silas (Michael Fassbender), a mysterious traveler, and hotly pursued by an outlaw along the way.

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