The Old Way

How is it possible that Nicolas Cage didn't make a Western until 2023? The man has played a medieval knight, a literal sorcerer, and a version of himself in a meta-fictional fever dream, yet the cowboy hat eluded him for four decades. The Old Way finally puts him in the saddle, but it arrives in that strange, post-pandemic streaming vacuum where movies often feel like they were captured in a very expensive, very clean terrarium. I watched this while trying to assemble a particularly stubborn IKEA bookshelf, and I found myself looking up at the screen every time Cage spoke, mostly to see if he was going to start chewing the scenery or if he was actually going to play it straight.

The Man Who Forgot How to Feel

In The Old Way, Nicolas Cage plays Colton Briggs, a man who starts the film as a cold-blooded assassin and ends the prologue as a cold-blooded shopkeeper. He’s a guy who seemingly lacks the hardware for human emotion—a trait he has unfortunately passed down to his daughter, Brooke, played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong (Firestarter). When the son of a man Briggs killed years ago (a twitchy Noah Le Gros) shows up to settle the score, the film transforms into a road-trip revenge drama.

What makes this more than a standard bargain-bin oater is the specific way Cage chooses to play Briggs. He isn’t doing the "Cage Rage" bit here. Instead, he’s playing a man who is essentially a high-functioning sociopath trying to mimic human behavior. It’s a fascinating choice. He’s stiff, awkward, and blunt. When his wife is murdered, he doesn't weep; he calculates. There’s a scene where he teaches his daughter how to cry on cue to manipulate people, and it’s easily the most "Nic Cage" moment in the movie. It’s weird, a little uncomfortable, and the only time the film feels like it’s breaking out of its low-budget constraints.

A Family Business of Lead and Dust

The meat of the story is the bond between Briggs and Brooke. Ryan Kiera Armstrong has a difficult job here; she has to play a child who is just as emotionally stunted as her father. For most of the runtime, they’re just two people with zero social skills walking through the woods with guns. It’s a deadpan Western. I actually found their interaction quite refreshing compared to the usual "gruff dad softens up for precocious kid" trope. Here, the dad says, "You’re doing great, kid, now let's go kill those guys," and the kid just nods.

The villains, led by Noah Le Gros as James McCallister, feel like they wandered in from a different, louder movie. Le Gros tries his best to channel a young Billy the Kid energy, but he’s hampered by a script that doesn’t give him much to do other than look menacing in a leather jacket. We also get brief appearances from reliable character actors like Abraham Benrubi and Shiloh Fernandez, but they’re mostly there to be target practice for the Briggs family. Clint Howard pops up as well, because apparently, it is a legal requirement for Clint Howard to appear in at least 15% of all films produced in North America.

The Streaming Frontier

Director Brett Donowho and cinematographer Sion Michel give the film a look that is polished but undeniably "modern." This is where the contemporary cinema context really bites. Unlike the gritty, grain-heavy Westerns of the 70s or the sweeping vistas of the 50s, The Old Way looks a bit too much like a high-end television pilot. The lighting is often very flat, and the "frontier" feels like a well-manicured park just outside of town. It lacks the lived-in grime that makes the best Westerns feel dangerous.

The film's obscurity—it basically vanished from the cultural conversation five minutes after it hit VOD—is likely due to this lack of visual identity. In an era of franchise fatigue, a standalone Western with a major star should feel like an event. Instead, it feels like "content." There were rumors that the production was a bit rushed, and you can see it in the editing. Some transitions are so abrupt they border on accidental surrealism.

Interestingly, this was one of the many films caught up in the shifting tides of theatrical versus streaming releases during the tail end of the pandemic era. It received a very limited theatrical run before being dumped onto digital platforms. It’s the kind of movie you find on a Tuesday night when you’ve already scrolled through the "New Releases" on three different apps. It isn't a "hidden gem" that will be reclaimed as a masterpiece in twenty years, but it’s a solid enough curiosity for anyone who wants to see Cage check "Cowboy" off his bucket list.

Ultimately, The Old Way is a movie that works best if you go in with lowered expectations and a genuine affection for its leading man. It’s a dry, occasionally stiff revenge story that survives on the strength of the oddball chemistry between Cage and Armstrong. It doesn't reinvent the wheel, and it certainly doesn't outshine the classics it's nodding toward, but as a minor entry in the Nicolas Cage canon, it’s a perfectly acceptable way to kill 95 minutes. Just don't expect it to stay with you much longer than the time it takes for the credits to roll.