The Old Way (2023)

[Winston T. Boogie]

Title: The Old Way (2023)

Tagline: You can outnumber him. But you can't outfight him.

Genre: Action, Western

Director: Brett Donowho

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Clint Howard, Abraham Benrubi, Shiloh Fernandez, Nick Searcy, Skyler Stone, Eddie Spears, Dean Armstrong

Release: 2023-01-06

Runtime: 95

Plot: An old gunslinger and his daughter must face the consequences of his past, when the son of a man he murdered years ago arrives to take his revenge.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Cage seems to have a pair of Westerns on the way and I have to say, that sounds good to me.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Strange, they seem to refer to this as Cage's first ever Western but I think he shot Butcher's Crossing before this.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

A revenge Western, not sure about that moustache but it looks like he does not wear it long.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

This arrived at my house the other day on Blu. I have not watched it yet, likely this weekend I'll get to it. Word on the film is it looks very nice, with lots of the traditional beautiful outdoor vistas you get in Westerns and that Cage is in understated rather than over the top mode here and is good in this as is the girl that plays his daughter.

One thing of note that just pops up in my head on this one, as I understand it the young armorer that worked on Rust also worked on this picture. This may have been her first film. During the shoot there was accidental/misfire of prop guns and Cage was infuriated by it and screamed at her about it.

Nothing to do with the quality of this picture but something that just sticks in my mind.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Did watch this over the weekend. Enjoyed it, the opening is not great but the film picks up from there. This is your standard revenge Western, with a guy coming after the Cage character because he killed his father when he was a boy. Cage was a cold blooded, emotionless bounty hunter, and in the opening flashback, he ends up killing a man while the man's son watches.

Flash forward several years and the Cage character, Colton Briggs, is married and has a daughter. The boy whose father he killed is now a grown man and comes looking for Briggs to get his revenge. To get his attention, he kills his wife, the only person to have ever made Briggs feel emotion. This sets Briggs on his trail and sends him back to his old ways.

Pretty standard set-up for this type of picture. What sets this apart from other stories like this is Briggs is a man that feels no emotion. He sees other people have them, but he is basically dead inside. The other oddball thing is so is his daughter, obviously inheriting this from her dad. The two make a weird pair because neither of them feels anything. So, off the two of them go to hunt down and kill the men that killed their wife and mother.

This lack of emotion from both of them makes for some funny/odd moments as they interact with people.

Because he is a man with no emotions, Cage basically underplays his role as Briggs. So, this is not the over-the-top freak out Nic. The young girl that plays his daughter is kind of the most interesting character here and does a very good job. The fact that she is also dead inside, does not shed a tear over her mother getting murdered, and obviously would feel as little taking a life as her father, is kind of freaky.

Nice looking outdoor locations, solid performances by Cage and the young Miss Armstrong (his daughter in the film) make this sort of standard story worth watching. You'll also recognize some of the supporting cast, Clint Howard (Ron's brother) as one of the bad guys and Abraham Benrubi (he was one of the young hands working for Boss Spearman, in Open Range) also as one of the bad guys. A solid, well made picture that does not break much new ground, other than the little girl that appears to be as cold blooded as a rattlesnake.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

Nice looking outdoor locations, solid performances by Cage and the young Miss Armstrong (his daughter in the film) make this sort of standard story worth watching. You'll also recognize some of the supporting cast, Clint Howard (Ron's brother) as one of the bad guys and Abraham Benrubi (he was one of the young hands working for Boss Spearman, in Open Range) also as one of the bad guys. A solid, well made picture that does not break much new ground, other than the little girl that appears to be as cold blooded as a rattlesnake.

Thanks for the review, Reggie. Sounds like my kind of flick. I like a good straight-up western. Tired of the revisionist take, just give me a solid, well-made no-frills shoot-'em-up with some good acting and nice scenery, and I'm happy.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Thanks for the review, Reggie. Sounds like my kind of flick. I like a good straight-up western. Tired of the revisionist take, just give me a solid, well-made no-frills shoot-'em-up with some good acting and nice scenery, and I'm happy.

You'll probably like this one, Jeff, because that is exactly what this is. A revenge tale, told in 90 minutes. No messing around, it gets quickly to the point. There are two scenes in the picture that I kept thinking about after it was over. One has to do with a decision Briggs considers after his wife is killed and the other, in a way, plays off of that and gives the daughter an interesting bit of dialogue. These were both unexpected moments in the story, for me, and they are character defining moments for Briggs and his daughter that make you wonder if you would want to cross their paths whether they liked you or not.

About the only bad thing in the film is Cage's mustache in the opening flashback, which is worn to make him look different than the older Briggs and you would think in this day and age they could do a better job with a mustache. Thankfully, in the rest of the film, the older Briggs has decided to go without facial hair.

In the special features on the Blu, Cage mentions this is the first Western he has ever done. He has made a second, which seems to be waiting for a release date. Oddly, I heard about his second Western before I heard about this one. I think people will probably see this one as either too familiar, because how many times have we seen the somebody kills guy's wife and so guy goes after the killer story, or they will enjoy it for the odd combo of father and young daughter hunting down the killers together angle. The girl that plays the 10-12 year old daughter kind of steals the film. She's really good in it once you understand what she is about.

 

[Jeffrey D]

Is this a similar film to Old Henry? If memory serves, revenge is a pretty big part of that film too.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Is this a similar film to Old Henry? If memory serves, revenge is a pretty big part of that film too.

Well, in Old Henry there is a twist about who the central character is but in this there is no twist. All the characters seem to know who Colton Briggs is and that he is about the most deadly man you might encounter. It literally just goes right to the revenge angle, with Briggs killing the boy's father in the opening, setting that boy on a revenge kick, and then that boy/now man kills Colton's wife and now he has a reason to get revenge. It is that straightforward. The only quirk, like I said, is that Briggs brings his little girl with him on his revenge hunt and she sort of matter of fact accepts this is what should be done.

Same idea of some guys poke the wrong extremely deadly guy but in Old Henry, they don't know they are doing it, in this the boy/man knows what he is doing and is getting revenge for Briggs killing his father.

 

[Jeffrey D]

This arrived at my house the other day on Blu. I have not watched it yet, likely this weekend I'll get to it. Word on the film is it looks very nice, with lots of the traditional beautiful outdoor vistas you get in Westerns and that Cage is in understated rather than over the top mode here and is good in this as is the girl that plays his daughter.

One thing of note that just pops up in my head on this one, as I understand it the young armorer that worked on Rust also worked on this picture. This may have been her first film. During the shoot there was accidental/misfire of prop guns and Cage was infuriated by it and screamed at her about it.

Nothing to do with the quality of this picture but something that just sticks in my mind.

If there was a documented accident involving guns on this film, then I am surprised the armorer got another job. Maybe personal connections played a part with her getting hired for Rust.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

If there was a documented accident involving guns on this film, then I am surprised the armorer got another job. Maybe personal connections played a part with her getting hired for Rust.

She is the daughter of a very well known (legendary) armorer and so, this likely got her into the business and got her these first few jobs. On this film she was doing something with a prop gun while Cage was close by and the gun went off, with a blank in it, and surprised Cage who screamed at her that now he could not hear out of one ear or something. I think he was super mad because there had been maybe a couple other surprise misfires on the set that frightened people. Nobody was hurt and they obviously finished the picture.

Not sure anybody documented this at the time so the Rust people probably did not know this had happened on this Cage picture. Does not sound great though because there were misfires on the Rust set prior to the death of the cinematographer. So, yeah, even though she only had a short history of working on pictures, she already had a nasty track record of misfires happening on sets she was on.

 

[billO']

This

She is the daughter of a very well known (legendary) armorer and so, this likely got her into the business and got her these first few jobs. On this film she was doing something with a prop gun while Cage was close by and the gun went off, with a blank in it, and surprised Cage who screamed at her that now he could not hear out of one ear or something. I think he was super mad because there had been maybe a couple other surprise misfires on the set that frightened people. Nobody was hurt and they obviously finished the picture.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: Nepotism Kills.