Butcher’s Crossing

Set in the late 1800s, Butcher’s Crossing follows an idealistic young man (Fred Hechinger’s Will Andrews) as he embarks on a dangerous buffalo-hunting expedition alongside the charismatic Miller (Nicolas Cage). Filmmaker Gabe Polsky, working from a script written with Liam Satre Meloy, kicks Butcher’s Crossing off with a fairly compelling opening stretch that seems to promise a rather standard Western, although Polsky’s emphasis on sinister elements, and a score that’s dripping with menace, effectively establishes an undercurrent of ominousness that proves difficult to resist. (It’s equally clear, however, that a decidedly unpleasant early hunting sequence threatens to completely derail the proceedings.) And although the claustrophobic bent of the movie’s narrative is occasionally tough to take, with virtually the entirety of the midsection consisting of various campfire scenes, Butcher’s Crossing benefits from a seriously commanding Cage performance and a tense second half devoted to Miller’s Apocalypse Now-like descent into madness – which, when coupled with a satisfyingly bleak final stretch, confirms the picture’s place as a watchable yet hit-and-miss endeavor that generally isn’t able to elevate itself to the level of Cage’s mesmerizing work.

**1/2 out of ****