The familiar elements are all there: the sad - sack salesman and female cop and
murderous drifter; the car crash and ill - fated traffic stop and grisly murders; the semi-arctic setting and «Minnesota nice» accents offering up yahs and you betchas and fer Pete's sakeses.
In a Valley of Violence begins like many oaters we've seen in the past and the archetypal characters that therein show all the hallmarks of cowboy picture platitudes; Paul (Ethan Hawke) is a self - effacing
drifter who appears more like a peacenik than the dangerous army deserter we suspect him to be; Gilly (James Ransone) is a
murderous intimidator; Mary - Anne (Tessa Farmiga) is a virginal ingenue; Marshal Clyde Martin (John Travolta) is the conflicted reprobate law man; and so on.