Like its central characters, at least Cave and Hillcoat are straightforward about their intentions (apart from the awkward placement of its female characters, who are mostly forgotten whenever they aren't
necessary to the plot), and the story unfolds in a
flurry of pummelings, shootings, and stabbings that punctuate the battle of wills between men with few moral qualms (One particularly gruesome episode really puts a character's legend to the test).
Each
flurry of brushwork ventures not the self - celebration of Abstract Expressionism but the undemonstrative spontaneity that many Zen practitioners take as an ideal: a mode of action that respects inaction and impersonality as its
necessary complement and background.