What to watch instead of "Conan" - Film Salon - Salon.com: The world of film distribution can be as cruel as a gang of bored silver miners who throw a longhorn bull into a deep pit with a grizzly bear just to see which will survive -- and just as senseless. That explains why this year's "Conan the Barbarian" was allowed to stink up 4,500 screens, while 2009's far superior "Solomon Kane" hasn't even been afforded the scant dignity of a U.S. DVD release. At least "Solomon Kane" has now turned up as an offering on Netflix streaming, like note in a bottle tossed adrift by the ghostly hand of author Robert E. Howard, the suicidal Texan who created both Conan and Kane during the pulp fiction heyday of the 1920s and 30s.
Solomon Kane, a grim demon-slaying pilgrim in a slouch hat, is one of Howard's more inspired creations, but the character hasn't exactly launched the careers of any Republican governors, so it's easy to see why the studio bean-counters backed "Conan" over "Kane." This isn't to say that "Solomon Kane" writer/director Michael J. Bassett ("Deathwatch") has delivered a completely faithful adaptation of any of the original Kane stories, but he has crafted a solid sword and sorcery movie built mostly on James Purefoy's (Mark Antony in HBO's "Rome") ability to be totally badassed in the title role while looking like a refugee from a Thanksgiving parade float. Joining Purefoy are the late Pete Postlethwaite ("The Town," "Inception") and Max von Sydow, who would've made an awesome Solomon Kane himself if Ken Russell or Dario Argento had directed this thing in the 1970s.
Once the evildoers kidnap the surviving Puritan girl (Rachel Hurd-Wood), Kane sets off on a horse-drawn carnage spree, cleaving Malachi's followers to the bone in true Howardian fashion. En route to his final confrontation with the forces of Satan, Kane confronts a creepy witch girl, fights his way out of a tomb filled with hissing zombies, and is crucified for added oomph.