An authentic Western in 'Hell on Wheels'

This brings him to the frontier, and a rough-and-tumble camp named "Hell on Wheels" filled with "gandy dancers," uncommonly tough crews of men building the railroad across the country. This camp is the leading edge of the Union Pacific build-out, run by Thomas "Doc" Durant (Colm Meaney), a corrupt, hard-bitten wastrel and opportunist. Bohannan needs friends, and finds one in a former slave, Elam Ferguson (Common).

Meanwhile, Indians have attacked a camp, killing a man who is carrying Durant's railroad maps. His wife Lily Bell (Dominique McElligott) escapes.

As conceived by writing team, brothers Joe and Tony Gayton ("Uncommon Valor," and recently, "Faster"), "Hell" is the postmodern, or at least post-Sergio Leone vision, of the Old West: A God-free zone where you killed or were killed, and it didn't necessarily matter which.

Mount, who's quite good here, has a Jim Caviezel stare and a Chuck Norris stubble and doesn't look like he's hit a shower in a decade. His sideman, Common, glowers and smolders. Meaney eats nails and washes 'em down with sour mash. It can all be a bit much, but you won't be bored.