It is the late nineteenth century and out in New Mexico a couple of newlyweds are trying to make it as farmers on a plot of land. The wife is Sarah Ramirez (January Jones), a former prostitute who has done something considered more scandalous than having sex for money, that is being a white woman who has married a Mexican, Miguel (Eduardo Noriega), so it's little wonder they wish to avoid society and live out their days with one another quietly on the farm. However, they are not the only ones out there who own land, for their immediate neighbour is Prophet Josiah (Jason Isaacs), a preacher with a very particular business method...
Westerns were still few and far between in the twenty-first century, but there were a small, redoubtable number being made, and one low budget indie with a better than average cast was Sweetwater, also known as Sweet Vengeance in some territories. It was the brainchild of twin brothers, Logan Miller, who directed, and Noah Miller, who scripted with him; they both took acting roles here too, as the two "trespassers" Prophet Josiah murders in return for slaughtering one of his sheep to eat when they were starving, travelling to meet the character played by Ed Harris, Sheriff Jackson. He renders this a kind of detective story as he seeks to solution to what happened to the brothers.
But then again, this was a revenge yarn as well, because of what Josiah does to Miguel. After they have an encounter over the problem of the preacher's sheep and goats eating Miguel's crops, this is all the excuse the supposed holy man needs to kill the farmer in cold blood, and for the rest of the movie Sarah does her best to work out what has happened to her husband, not that a lot of working out is necessary since it's fairly obvious who the culprit is, though without a body and the local Sheriff no help whatsoever, a woman's gotta do what a woman's gotta do and take matters into her own hands. As if losing her spouse wasn't bad enough, Sarah loses her pregnancy as well in a miscarriage thanks to the trauma, another strong reason to get her own back.
