Let Him Go (15)

Retired sheriff George Blackledge and his horse trainer wife Margaret live on a ranch in 1960s Montana with their 25-year-old son James, his wife Lorna and their grandson Jimmy. A freak horse-riding accident forces the Blackledges to bury their boy and they watch helplessly as Lorna eventually marries another man, Donnie Weboy, who communicates with his fists. Margaret compels George to join her on a cross-country odyssey to prise their grandson out of Donnie's clutches.

LondonNet Film Review
Let Him Go (PG)

Blood is thicker than water and both spill far too easily in writer-director Thomas Bezucha’s slow-burning thriller of strained familial ties, torn from the pages of a novel by Larry Watson. Anchored by impassioned performances from Diane Lane and Lesley Manville as strong-willed matriarchs who are fiercely divided about custody of a grandchild, Let Him Go canters down a familiar path, steadily ratcheting up tension until the only conceivable resolution is snarling threats and violence. When base desires override rational thought, they are neatly contained in an explosive final act…

Barbarity and retribution are the least satisfying elements of the film’s meandering narrative. Lane adds layers of corrosive grief and indignation to her proud homemaker, who cannot bear to lose her grandson three years after burying her only child. “I’m hoping to give her that, let her say goodbye,” her husband – played with stoic resolve by Kevin Costner – confides to a kindly police officer. Manville’s cigarette-puffing harpy is a chip off the same block as Jacki Weaver’s protective mother bear in Animal Kingdom. She keeps her kin close and manipulates them to do her bidding, which could include the introduction of a sharpened blade to fleshy digits.

Retired sheriff George Blackledge (Costner) and his horse trainer wife Margaret (Lane) live on a ranch in 1960s Montana with their 25-year-old son James (Ryan Bruce), his wife Lorna (Kayli Carter) and their grandson Jimmy (Bram and Otto Hornung). A freak horse-riding accident forces the Blackledges to bury their boy and they watch helplessly as Lorna eventually marries another man, Donnie Weboy (Will Brittain), who communicates with his fists. Without warning, Donnie spirits Lorna and three-year-old Jimmy away to his family home in Gladstone, North Dakota.

Margaret is bereft. She was denied a chance to say goodbye to James and she refuses to be separated from her cherished only grandson. The grandmother packs up her worldly belongings and issues husband George with an ultimatum about little Jimmy: “I won’t be coming back here without him”. Consequently, the Blackledges embark on a cross-country odyssey to prise their grandson out of Donnie’s clutches. The hastily conceived mission puts the couple on a collision course with hot-headed Weboy matriarch Blanche (Manville) and her other sons, Bill (Jeffrey Donovan), Marvin (Adam Stafford) and Elton (Connor Mackay).

Let Him Go is distinguished by quietly compelling performances from Lane, Manville and Costner, who enrich their characters beyond the pages of Bezucha’s script. Graphic violence is used sparingly for shocking dramatic effect and fully warrants the film’s 15 certificate. A saggy middle section introduces a Native American outcast (Booboo Stewart) to even the numbers a little for a climactic showdown with only one logical and emotionally satisfying outcome. Yes, there will be blood.

– Kim Hu