Film: A breath of fresh Western air

Blackthorn

**Directed by Mateo Gil**

**Light House, Dublin 7, cert 15A**

**Rating: 4/5**

.....

An alternate history of how outlaw Butch Cassidy's life might have turned out if he had survived the jump off that waterfall in Bolivia, Spanish director Mateo Gil's Blackthorn is a beautifully modulated speculation; an ambient revisionist Western with a sterling central performance from Sam Shepard. What if history (and George Roy Hill's classic 1969 buddy-comedy caper) ...