Avaliações do Metacritic

It’s a welcome spin on the once-dominant genre that now struggles for oxygen. It’s also less brutal a viewing experience than Mortensen’s punishing directorial debut, with plenty of shoots of hope, and an abundance of natural beauty.

Violence and tragedy is where the story is naturally heading, and this trajectory is plain in every scene and every shot: a world where aggression must either be violently and dangerously resisted or accepted.

It wouldn’t be a Western if it didn’t include some kind of showdown, and “The Dead Don’t Hurt” gives us one that is bloody and satisfying without being what you’d expect. Mortensen twists the tropes until the end.

Mortensen is playing with iconography here, so it’s less about that destination than the journey — and he finds the right, delicate, evocative note to conclude on and holds it exactly as long as he should. “The Dead Don’t Hurt” isn’t your typical revenge Western, but audiences willing to stick with it will find a picture rendered with grace, patience, and artistry.

For better or worse, the film is more of an intellectual affair than a thriller.

The measured pacing and an overly generous running time might work against the picture, but for the most part, it’s a rich, rewarding and fully fleshed-out drama.

Though the ending is somewhat disappointing and less dynamic than everything that preceded it, this can’t take away all that the film still has going for it.

The Dead Don’t Hurt is stuffed to the gills with western tropes, with not a whole lot to add to the genre, especially in terms of furthering feminism onscreen. It may not be the worst western in the world in terms of women’s rights, but that is hardly a reason to commend a film that’s only missing the whore with the heart of gold.

This is certainly patient storytelling, but there’s a difference when that doesn’t really lead anywhere in terms of stirring character development or eye-opening observation.

A tale of romance and revenge that culminates in a shootout, The Dead Don’t Hurt is not a total misfire. There are moments of excitement, and the film’s semi-nonlinearity allows for a few midpoint surprises about characters we thought we knew.