The Old Way review: Nicolas Cage elevates dusty Western - Digital Trends

1 year ago 33

Nicolas Cage and Ryan Kiera Armstrong look astatine the camera with a equine down them successful a country from The Old Way.

“Nicolas Cage's archetypal Western doesn't blaze immoderate caller trails, but it does boast good performances from its pb and co-star Ryan Kiera Armstrong.”

Pros

Nicolas Cage elevates the film
Some amazingly affectional moments
Standout show from Ryan Kiera Armstrong

Cons

Predictable, formulaic story
Forgettable villains

A bully Western tin screen a batch of ground, virtually and thematically. Hollywood’s best Westerns thin to usage the genre to research analyzable historical, emotional, and idiosyncratic taxable matter, sometimes with nuance, but much often with the benignant of explosive, straightforward stories that make a way of bodies and plentifulness of motivation uncertainty among the story’s main characters.

Director Brett Donowho’s The Old Way keeps things simple, but the film’s acquainted communicative of a grizzled gunslinger whose bloody past catches up with him inactive manages to present a fewer surprises, on with an entertaining show from Nicolas Cage.

Nicolas Cage scowls astatine the camera successful a country from The Old Way.

Based connected a publication penned by Carl W. Lucas, The Old Way casts Cage arsenic Colton Briggs, a erstwhile gunfighter whose quiescent beingness arsenic a hubby and begetter is torn isolated by the big lad of a antheral helium killed years earlier. Determined to avenge the execution of his wife, Colton sets retired with his young, emotionally distant girl to hunt down the antheral who brought his status to a brutal end.

While Cage is beforehand and halfway arsenic the film’s cold-blooded gunslinger, he’s joined successful the formed by Firestarter star Ryan Kiera Armstrong arsenic Brooke, Colton’s daughter. Noah Le Gros (The Beach House) plays James McCallister, whose begetter was killed by Colton decades earlier, portion Shiloh Fernandez (Evil Dead), Abraham Benrubi (ER), and Clint Howard (Apollo 13) play the members of McCallister’s’ gang.

On the surface, The Old Way is simply a reasonably traditional, by-the-numbers Western. Anyone acquainted with the tropes of the genre volition person a bully thought aboriginal connected wherever the communicative is headed and who’s apt to unrecorded oregon dice among the cast. Colton and Brooke’s dogged pursuit of McCallister’s and his pack leaves small clip to delve into backstories, and the film’s villains are lone developed capable to supply the occasional interlude arsenic the communicative follows the begetter and daughter’s journey. When the 2 groups’ narratives yet scope a bloody intersection, the effect is truthful predictable wrong the conventions of the genre and harmless (narratively speaking) that it feels a spot anticlimactic.

What does set The Old Way isolated from akin stories, however, are the performances from Cage and Armstrong, arsenic good arsenic immoderate of the decisions it makes regarding their characters.

Nicolas Cage and Ryan Kiera Armstrong look astatine the camera with a equine down them successful a country from The Old Way.

Cage is, arsenic always, fascinating to ticker arsenic Colton. He’s large astatine playing simmering characters teetering connected the borderline of a motivation divide, and Colton is precisely that benignant of character, afloat of seething imaginable and equipped with a resting slayer face. The publication has Cage pivot betwixt a much accepted antheral of fewer words archetype and a tortured psyche whose bitterness pours retired successful a torrent of dialog whenever idiosyncratic inadvertently breaks the seal.

Armstrong plays disconnected Cage’s quality well, too, and the pair’s awkward narration feels wholly successful keeping with the genetics their characters share. The story’s exploration of their narration sets the signifier for 1 of the film’s fewer surprises, too, arsenic Colton and Brooke gradually find communal crushed successful the separation they consciousness from society.

Rather than simply overgarment Colton arsenic a cold-blooded weapon for prosecute and determination on, the movie explores the easiness with which Cage’s quality handles decease and however it relates to the trouble helium has successful connecting with people. What helium reveals astir the mode his caput works and his narration to the satellite astir him would apt autumn nether Asperger’s syndrome oregon different upset connected the autism spectrum today, but successful the Wild West era, it’s casual to spot however the manus helium was dealt successful beingness turned him into the misunderstood antheral helium is.

Cage delivers this caller rotation connected the lone gunslinger to highest effect — peculiarly arsenic Colton begins to recognize that his girl has inherited galore of the aforesaid qualities that caused him truthful overmuch suffering implicit the years. His desperation to acceptable her connected a antithetic way offers immoderate of the film’s astir almighty moments, and differentiates The Old Way successful immoderate tiny — but effectual — ways from the countless films it borrows from.

While the remainder of the movie holds fewer surprises, the performances by Cage and Armstrong successful The Old Way elevate an different rote Western into thing acold much entertaining. The movie doesn’t instrumentality galore risks and doesn’t instrumentality its quality into galore unexpected places, but it does tweak a fewer accepted elements successful immoderate intriguing ways that crook The Old Way into a communicative worthy seeing done to its explosive finale.

Directed by Brett Donowho, The Old Way is present successful prime theaters, and disposable for on-demand streaming January 13.