Movie Review: Nicolas Cage is BORING in 'The Old Way'

The Old Way (2023)

Directed by Brett Donawho

Written by Carl W. Lucas

Starring Nicolas Cage, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Le Gros

Release Date January 6th, 2023

Published January 10th, 2023

The Old Way stars Nicolas Cage as former gunfighter Colton Briggs. A well known and much feared outlaw in his day, Colton is now domesticated. He has a wife, Ruth (Kerry Knuppe), and a daughter, Brooke (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), and a dry good store in town. He's become an upstanding citizen so naturally, his past is coming back to haunt him. Enter a group of bandits led by James McCallister (Noah Le Gros). McCallister and his gang are on the run from the law when they happen upon the Briggs' homestead while Colton is away at work.

Through a fluke of fate, the home that the bad guys want to hole up in for a night is that of the man that killed McCallister's father and uncle, right in front of him, more than a decade ago. Though he's well aware of Briggs' reputation as the coldest of cold blooded killers, McCallister and his goons, Boots (Shiloh Fernandez), Big Mike (Abraham Benrubi), and Eustice (Clint Howard), set about torturing and murdering Ruth with McCallister hoping that her murder will bring Briggs out of outlaw retirement.

Indeed, this does provide motivation for Colton to dust off his long black coat and revolvers but there is a potential impediment to Colton's roaring rampage of revenge. Colton's daughter is still alive. She was with Colton at his store when her mother died. Thus, Colton must decide what to do with his little girl while pursuing his outlaw revenge. Lucky for him, Brooke has a lot more of her father in her than he might imagine. Brooke doesn't cry over her mom's death, she picks up a shotgun.

That's a good set up for a western story. Sadly, as that story plays out in The Old Way, it never gains much life. What's lacking in The Old Way is something to set the story apart from other similar western stories. You might reasonably assume that casting the wildly charismatic and unpredictable Nicolas Cage might provide that unique quality but you'd be mistaken. Unfortunately, Nicolas Cage delivers one of the most by the numbers performances of his career in The Old Way.

There is none of that classically Cage flourish. He's dialed back his charisma so far that he barely registers on screen and without him, we are left with a lot of very familiar elements of classic westerns. I'm not calling the movie predictable, that's too easy a criticism. No, what the movie truly lacks is vitality. It lacks colorful dialogue or a distinguished visual quality, or a character who exists out of the norm of a classic western character. It needs one unique and exciting element to bring new life to what we expect of a revenge story set in the old west.

When the best thing about a Nicolas Cage movie is not Nicolas Cage, that is a recipe for a not great movie. And the best thing about The Old Way is not Nicolas Cage's dirge like performance. Rather, it comes in a supporting performance by venerable character actor Nick Searcy who has all of the energy, vitality, and charisma lacking in Cage's leading man performance. Searcy lights up the screen in the relatively small role of the Sheriff hunting the bad guys.

The only lasting impression Cage makes in The Old Way comes from a brief prologue scene where he wears a glorious Yosemite Sam mustache. I was deflated to see him without this gorgeous facial hair when the movie jumped ahead in time as the promise of seeing Cage work that mustache was huge. The rest of the movie sadly cannot compete with that brief, beautiful bit of facial decoration. If the movie had half the excitement of Nicolas Cage with a Yosemite Sam mustache, I would probably recommend the movie. Sadly, once Cage is fully shorn, the fun and interest in the movie goes with it; leaving in favor of a by the numbers old west tale. By the way, my head canon, based on my Cage lore, he only agreed to this role if he could wear this mustache for at least one sequence.

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