The Old Way – Film Review

Retired gunslinger Colton Briggs faces the consequences of his past when the son of a man he murdered arrives to take his revenge. Briggs must take up arms once more after his wife is killed, and is joined by his young daughter.

We are not even two weeks into the new year, and yet director Brett Donowho has already blessed us with a brand new Nicolas Cage movie where he plays a notorious gunfighter named Colton Briggs, set in the Wild West. If that alone doesn’t sell you, then I don’t know what will.

To be fair, it’s not one of the most unhinged performances of Cage’s in the past couple of years, but it’s still got a few moments where Cage truly shines like we all know he can do in the right scene. This film is essentially a classic revenge story mixed with a story about a father and daughter, who are both quite different from one another.

This movie gets absolutely no points when it comes to originality, but I’d be lying to you if I said that I didn’t have a surprising amount of fun with it. Cage’s character Colton is essentially introduced to us in the first scene as a complete and utter badass with no mercy.

In the opening few moments, we see Colton go on a killing rampage in the middle of town, leaving behind only one survivor – a young boy who just got his father killed by none other than Colton himself. Right then and there, you can see a flicker of anger and vengeance in the boy’s eyes as Colton rides off into the sunset.

Fast-forward twenty years later and this boy is now a hardened killer similar to how Colton is, or rather, used to be. Colton is now a softer man, who wants to lay low and take care of his wife and young daughter. But the boy he spared all these years ago, now grown up, seeks vengeance for his father’s death and will stop at nothing to ensure that Colton is killed.

It’s really enjoyable to see the way screenwriter Carl W. Lucas writes the sequences with Colton simply teaching his daughter how to survive. He pens a script that’s full of wonder and life despite the fact that, as I mentioned earlier, it feels way too familiar. If you’re on the hunt for a totally original Western, you should look elsewhere.

It does, however, have a strong beating heart at its core that I’m sure most viewers will be swept up by. It’s essentially a movie in which Cage’s character Colton must pass down his legacy even if he knows that it’s not a good one. The world is a dangerous place, and Colton knows this better than anyone. But he still must make sure that his youngling is prepared to survive in the world all by herself because Colton is aware he won’t live to an old age.

In terms of the action sequences here, they’re nothing too special, unfortunately. Who doesn’t love a good Western film shootout sequence? This film only has the one in the beginning and even that one didn’t feel too exciting. It just kind of happens and you forget about it rather quickly.

But even still, there’s an undeniable charm to this film that I simply cannot shake. It’s not even close to being one of Cage’s best films and it won’t go down as one of the best films of the year, but it’s definitely one that I had a blast watching, and I can only hope and pray that this isn’t the last time Cage makes a Western.

Even with a story that has no tricks up its sleeves, The Old Way is a surprisingly enjoyable Western with a strong beating heart at its core, featuring two strong lead performances by Nicolas Cage and Ryan Kiera Armstrong.