Westerns often sell myths: lone heroes framed against endless skies, villains who meet justice in the town square, and violence refined into legend. The Thicket, adapted from Joe R. Lansdale’s award-winning novel, takes a different approach with its cold and unforgiving world, where every step feels heavier than the last. The story begins when a young girl named Lula (Esmé Creed-Miles) is kidnapped by the ruthless outlaw Cut Throat Bill, a genuinely unpredictable threat played with feral intensity by Juliette Lewis. Reginald “Shorty” Jones, a bounty hunter portrayed by Peter Dinklage, is hired to track her down.
The project itself survived a journey as rough as the one its characters face. First announced in 2014, The Thicket spent a decade caught in delays and setbacks, in fact, the pandemic nearly stopped it entirely. Through all of that, Dinklage never left. His decade-long attachment gives Shorty a lived-in weight, as if the actor had been preparing for this role as long as the film had been fighting to exist. That history seeps into the movie’s grit, grounding the chase in more than just fiction.
Peter Dinklage’s Character Reinvents the Western Hero
Shorty doesn’t stride into rooms with bravado or fill the frame with size or swagger. Where other Western leads announce themselves with a booming presence, he draws attention by holding back. In a tense standoff, the camera lingers on him doing almost nothing — a stillness that forces everyone else to twitch first. When violence finally breaks out, his hand doesn’t move in a blur of spectacle; it moves in a single, precise strike, as if every second of waiting was part of the plan. That restraint sets him apart from the tradition of towering figures and loud declarations. Shorty survives not by overwhelming enemies but by reading them, studying the terrain, and wasting nothing, whether it’s words or bullets.
And yet, there’s nothing pure about him. His choices carry the weight of calculation, not righteousness. A shot is not fired to save a life but to end a problem. Dinklage leans into that ambiguity, playing Shorty as a man whose authority feels earned, but whose methods leave dust and questions in their wake. In a genre long defined by swagger, his endurance speaks louder than bravado — a reminder that control, not volume, is what cuts deepest in a world this unforgiving.
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Esmé Creed-Miles Rides Into Tubi’s Western With Grit
Lula spends most of the story as the kidnapped girl at the center of the search, but Esmé Creed-Miles makes sure she isn’t lost in the background. Even in captivity, her performance leaves flashes of fight. Her shoulders tense when her captors move close, her gaze sharpens into defiance, and her sudden outbursts cut through fear. Those moments ripple outward, keeping her present in the story even when the camera turns to the rescue party. For fans of Netflix’s The Sandman, the contrast is striking. Creed-Miles embodies Delirium there, a character steeped in chaos and whimsy. In The Thicket, she pivots to grit and grounded resilience. That shift underscores her range, showing how instinctive choices — quick reactions, unguarded flashes of vulnerability — give Lula life even in silence. She doesn’t play a victim waiting to be saved, she plays someone fighting to survive; and the tension she brings keeps the film from sinking into despair.
Her presence also broadens the film’s appeal. The Sandman fans drawn in by curiosity will find a performance worlds apart from Delirium’s ethereal energy. In contrast, Western fans encounter a character whose resilience is the fragile thread holding the chase together. In both cases, Creed-Miles sharpens the film’s grit, making Lula the heartbeat beneath the tension and the violence. The Thicket doesn’t dress airbrush the Old West. Its land looks unforgiving, its violence leaves scars, and its characters show weakness and humanity as opposed to only crude strength. What carries it is the weight of its performances. Dinklage’s Shorty commands not through swagger but through survival, his long commitment to the project echoing in every steady glance and pause. Creed-Miles shifts cleanly from The Sandman’s Delirium into Lula’s fragile resilience, giving the film urgency and edge. Together, they shape a Western that feels stripped down, lived in, and sharper than myth.
After a decade in the making, The Thicket finally reached the screen — and now it’s free to stream on Tubi.
