The Timber | Film review - Bounty hunters Josh Peck & James Ransone go gunning for their dad | Movie Talk | What's on TV

(Image credit: Programme Content and Photograph)

Set against the snowbound backdrop of the 1898 Yukon gold rush, dour Western The Timber finds two hardscrabble brothers (Josh Peck, James Ransone) becoming bounty hunters in a bid to save their homestead from foreclosure. Their quarry is their own outlaw father (William Gaunt), which raises the stakes for them but not, sadly, for the viewer. Indeed, despite the odd burst of bloodshed and the harsh beauty of the landscape (Romania’s Carpathian Mountains standing in for the Yukon), the brothers’ desperate quest proves something of a plod.

Certificate 15. Runtime 81 mins. Director Anthony O'Brien

The Timber is available on DVD & Digital HD from Lionsgate Home Entertainment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZbkGbFMmSY

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.