Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
Director: Brett Donowho, Defiant Screen Entertainment.
Academy Award-winner Nicolas Cage stars in his first western as Colton Briggs, a cold-blooded gunslinger, turned respectable family man. When an outlaw and his gang put Colton and his family in peril, he is forced to take up arms with an unlikely partner — his 12-year-old daughter.
From a script by Carl W. Lucas, Brett Donowho directs where the opening is a characteristic Western image — a hangin’. Then things go sideways after an escape attempt and the street gets littered with bodies, all at the hands of Briggs (Cage, Leaving Las Vegas, City of Angels, Con Air, Face/Off)), a hired gunslinger who leaves a young boy, now fatherless, behind at the scene to deal with the wreckage.
Two decades later, and we see Briggs has hung up his guns for a much quieter life. He lives with his wife, Ruth (Kerry Knuppe), and daughter, Brooke (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) in a small country cabin and manages a humble store in town.
However, this tranquility is soon interrupted by a gang of outlaws, led by the wild-eyed James McCallister (Noah Le Gros), who looks to start trouble at the Briggs homestead. While Brooke and Colton mind the store, the outlaws terrorise and ultimately murder Ruth. Such action awakens the slayer inside Colton and sends him and his daughter on a mission of revenge.
Two components to watch this western actioner are: Nicolas Cage, who is feeling shattered, but ruthless as Colton Briggs. The other is Ryan Kiera Armstrong.
Who is the unlikely partner with whom Nicolas Cage is forced to take up arms? If your answer is correct, you could be one of three winners of a DVD of The Old Way. Entries should be sent to [email protected] by Monday, 13 March 2023. Names of the winners will be published in Frank Cassidy’s PS-sssst…! column on 14 March 2023.
- The Old Way is out on DVD
