Review: 'Power of the Dog' reasserts Jane Campion's mastery and reveals a new side of Benedict Cumberbatch
Phil Burbank is a 1920s rancher, a born rider of horses and a skilled leader of men. He is also a sadist, a master of psychological abuse and, as played by a monstrous, mesmerizing Benedict Cumberbatch, one of the scariest characters you may encounter in a movie this year. For all that, he may be less scary than he is proud, reveling in his dominion over the land and its creatures great and small. He especially prides himself on having the gift of sight, an ability to see things that others cannot, like the strange, elusive vision cast by shadows in the hills near his Montana ranch. "There is something there, right?" one of his men asks. Phil replies, "Not if you can't see it, there ain't."
The mystery of the seen and unseen lies at the heart of "The Power of the Dog," Jane Campion's brilliantly acted, insidiously gripping adaptation of
