TORNADO Review: More of an Attractively Shot Gust of Wind, Really

A tornado is a funnel of fierce wind that touches down, leaves a trail of carnage in its wake, and then disappears back up into the sky. John Maclean's latest never approaches that level of energetic destruction and majesty, but Tornado still finds a little violence and a bit more beauty along the way.

It's the late 19th century, and a band of rogues are chasing a young Japanese woman across the English countryside. We don't know why, yet, but it's clear she's woefully outnumbered and probably well beyond her depth. Questions are answered with a jump backward where we meet both the rogues -- a group of thieves led by Sugarman (Tim Roth) and his son Little Sugar (Jack Lowden) -- and Tornado (Koki), a young woman who, along with her father (Takehiro Hira), perform a traveling puppet show highlighting Japanese culture and samurai traditions.

Tornado, like most teens, is bored with her father's life and yearns for something more. Little Sugar is essentially no different in that he wants to run the gang in ways his old man can't fathom as the old ways are becoming obsolete. The two cross paths when Tornado helps herself to the gang's gold -- an impulsive decision that leads to violence, cardio, and lots of death.

Writer/director Maclean's long overdue follow-up to 2015's still brilliant Slow West seems simple in its premise, and it never makes much of an effort to change that assessment. Tornado is a chase film that ends in violence, and its themes are summed up in the idea that children despise their parents and fear becoming them, and that these times, they are a changin'. That's certainly enough to hang a tight 90-minute film on, but it feels a bit slight in the execution.

While the in medias res opening suggest an exciting payoff after the slow burn to come, Maclean is less interested in following through on that promise than he is in delivering a methodical, attractively shot tale of misbehaving "kids." It builds back to that opening chase as Tornado faces down the various thugs, but you'd be lying to yourself if you called the results exciting or the action thrilling. There's a plainness to it, a quick simplicity to the conflicts that couldn't care less about dramatic presentation or cathartic satisfaction.

And that's okay -- unless you're going into Tornado expecting an action film. Go in hoping for engaging performances, beautiful cinematography, and a terrific score, though, and you'll walk out happy. Character depth may be limited, but Roth imbues a richness to his tired thief revealing a man whose best days are long behind him. Lowden, by contrast, is piss and vinegar personified even as he wisely keeps Little Sugar from becoming a caricature.

Hira does equally strong work with his limited screen time, but it's Koki who shines brightest as the bored teen who comes to realize the consequences of her actions too late. The third act conflict becomes inevitable, albeit less electric than you're probably hoping, and she holds her own both dramatically and with a limited action presence.

Robbie Ryan's camera captures the landscape's details and desolation finding beauty in the cold, hazy air, while Jed Kurzel's score finds both melody and a threat to break the calm of what's onscreen. Both work to massage the senses and keep them loose for the film's running time -- an ideal ninety minutes that more filmmakers should aim for -- even as things heat up slightly with a sword-wielding Tornado.

"Good is boring," replies Tornado to her father's sad observation that audiences always cheer loudest for the villain puppets. It's a fair point that Maclean avoids extrapolating to the film itself by ensuring that neither Tornado's hero nor its villains are all that exciting. It's good, though, so make of that what you will.

The film is now playing in select theaters via IFC Films.