"We opened a dark door and the devil stepped in," a cowpoke says in the confession booth, in the opening moments of AMC's filmed-in-Alberta period western about the building of the Union Pacific Railroad through the Nebraska Territory of the late 1800s.
Hell on Wheels is a western, but it's no Wagon Train. Anson Mount, the rapper Common and Colm Meaney - utterly convincing as an Al Swearengen-style railroad baron determined to tear up the rolling prairie no matter the cost - are the main players in a period tale that plays like a Shakespearean tragedy played out against a bucolic backdrop of grassy plains and rolling thunderclouds.
Hell on Wheels won't suit all tastes - it's dark, slow-burning and not exactly brimming with optimism - but for those who like their westerns gritty and realistic, they don't get much better than this.
Inevitable comparisons with HBO's late, still lamented Deadwood are a little unfair: Hell on Wheels is its own tale, and set in a different time - broader in scope, more eye-filling and closer to the pioneer TV westerns of yesterday, but with a modern sensibility. Social issues of the day, such as lingering racism, aboriginal land claims, rapacious greed and unchecked capitalism, all come into play, but thankfully not in an obvious, beat-'em-over-the-head way. Hell on Wheels is unlikely to single-handedly revive the TV western, but it's a heckuva start.
Source: The Vancouver Sun
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