Old Henry (2021)

Probably the best work in a very long time when it comes to westerns.

Stephen Dorff and Tim Blake Nelson are great actors and have done a great job.

The young actor Gavin Lewis, known for the terrible series 'Prince of Peoria' broadcast on Netflix, did a very successful acting against two such powerful actors.

He might even win an award with this movie.

The director-screenwriter, producers, cinematographer and composer of the film have not had big jobs before.

Together they made a great movie.

Fmovies: A farmer defending an injured man from a posse has his true identity called into question.

From the opening director Potsy Ponciroli's offering, you know your not having to sit through another glossy looking made for streaming looking western. It has a filmatic look with wonderful cinematography from John Matysiak. It's centred around the homestead and every inch of location used, giving a feel of solitude and hopelessness. This with some old school editing by Jamie Kirkpatrick and Ponciroli's visual flare and attention to detail echo Pale Rider and is reminiscent at times of modern great westerns, emulating The Unforgiven, with touch of the classics.

Complimented by Jordan Lehning music Stephen Dorff leaves an impression as Ketchum and showcase why he should be making more quality films. Old Henry is clearly Tim Blake Nelson's vehicle, he gives a solid, steely performance. Throwing in a few twist Ponciroli with his writing hat on leans on the tropes of the genre while not shying away from the harsh reality of the Wild West that all accumulates to a satisfactory conclusion. Recommend.

Tim Blake Nelson is Old Henry, a seemingly simple farmer who lives with his teenage son on a farm in turn of the century Oklahoma. He rescues a wounded man with a satchel and eventually must make choices in order to protect himself and his son. An all male cast is unusual in the modern era and they are all excellent. The story is has twists and turns which are based on historical people. The scenery is beautiful and Nelson should earn an Oscar nomination.

Old Henry fmovies. Generous with a 10 cos i enjoyed this movie. Simple, ain't no wannabe critic.

In fact apart from being an enjoyable movie for genre fans like me, this one has top notch cinematography, first class actors and a simple yet engrossing screenplay.

Tim Blake Nelson's posture, body movements, his worn out face n eyes fits the character n the revelation perfectly.

The sudden character transformation is amazeballs.

It was good to see Stephen Dorff aft Jackals n True Detective S3.

Many may compare it with the masterpiece Unforgiven but i think that's unfair.

Irony abounds. Six decades ago you could not turn on the TV or go to a theatre without bumping into a western. Today they are few and far between. (Except for the fact that Clint Eastwood is still starring in them, which is just plain odd). So when this little gem shows up, with the guts to bet the farm (literally) on a tight script and a BIG REVEAL, you really have to take off your hat and salute it.

Film westerns are sometimes like the dime novels that so frequently supported the tall tales therein-minimalist and fabulous. However, now and then an authentic and harrowing story like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven rides in and changes things. I also characterize Old Henry, an Amazon original starring Tim Blake Nelson in the title role, of striking out for new fictional territory, although having a whiff of Unforgiven in the telling.

Henry (Nelson) is a farmer seemingly hiding out for no reason known to anyone, certainly not his teen son, Wyatt (Gavin Lewis), who nonetheless suspects dad may be more than a simple farmer.

As writer/director Potsy Ponciroli incrementally distributes Henry's back story, the film becomes not only thrilling with possibilities but also a decidedly trenchant commentary on the outcomes of choices early in life that refuse to go away no matter how we try to escape them.

Who to trust? That's a whole other topic of this minor classic.

Enter the stranger who changes things, Curry (Scott Haze), wounded and taken in by Henry, only to be followed by a gang of desperados wanting their stolen money back from Curry. The banter between Henry and lead bad boy Ketchum (Stephen Dorff) is the stuff of terse, pulpy, and sardonic inuendo, like the opening of Tarantino's Inglourious Bastards, with Christof Waltz doing veiled threatening over a glass of milk. Ponciroli shows a dialogue talent that suggests much more than it says.

Besides dialogue, this oater has the requisite satchel of cash to move the story, which eschews the Chaucerian greed motif (think The Pardoner's Tale) to get to the heart of the matter-a dad meeting a son on common ground for survival-and the quick surrender of dad Henry's dictatorship to allow son Wyatt to grow into a heroic equal.

The landscape is stark, the cabin is spare, and yet there is depth of history for dad and care for Wyatt. The bad guys, bound for a reckoning with a hidden force in Henry, are the typical western villains who embody the ambivalence of the wide-open territory (they aren't really lawmen bringing justice to the frontier), fraught with danger but a promise of a new life redeemed from violence but not after violence has a hand. As in Eastwood, combating an evil past and setting the record straight requires heroism of a small but symbolically significant consequence for these little lives on the Western plains.

Henry is a player of consequence, a part of history told in one of the cleverest reveals ever. Old Henry is a small adventure that means more than it appears. On Prime.