The Nicolas Cage Revenge Western You Need To Stream
Nicolas Cage has seen quite the career resurgence in recent years, and he has the filmography to prove it.
Nicolas Cage has seen quite the career resurgence in recent years, and he has the filmography to prove it. With titles like Pig, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Sympathy for the Devil, and most recently, Dream Scenario being met with critical acclaim, one would think that the actor’s straight-to-streaming days were behind him. But The Old Way is one such movie that transforms Nicolas Cage into a gun-slinging outlaw hellbent on revenge.
Currently available for streaming on Hulu, The Old Way marks Nicolas Cage’s first attempt at starring in a Western. Despite its lukewarm reception, The Old Way has a lot going for it, as it plays things straight but has a healthy amount of humor to move the story along.
The Old Way spends a brief amount of time in 1878 Montana Territory, and the opening shootout wastes no time establishing the story. Nicolas Cage’s Colton Briggs finds himself in the middle of an altercation that results in him shooting the father of a young James McAllister without hesitation before riding off into the sunset.
The narrative quickly shifts, and 20 years later, we see Colton Briggs living a normal life where he owns some acreage and runs a general store. Nicolas Cage’s subdued delivery in the first act of The Old Way shows us a man who has changed for the better. Swearing he’d never go back to his violent past, he credits his wife, Ruth, for encouraging him to settle down.
Briggs brings his 12-year-old daughter, Brooke (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), to his store when her teacher falls ill, and it’s evident that they have clashing personalities. After a hard day’s work, Briggs returns to his farm only to find out that a grown-up James McAllister raided his home and murdered his wife with the help of his posse of outlaws. At this point in The Old Way, we find ourselves treading into familiar territory involving a Nicolas Cage revenge arc.
After receiving a healthy amount of discouragement from U.S. Marshal Franklin Jarret, Briggs decides to take matters into his own hands. Like most Nicolas Cage films that center on overcoming grief through violence (of which there are plenty), The Old Way thrusts us into a cat-and-dog chase between Colton Briggs, and the man who murdered his wife. But what sets The Old Way apart from other Western films is its use of humor.
One scene in particular perfectly highlights the chemistry between Nicolas Cage and Ryan Kiera Armstrong in The Old Way, and it comes in the form of a crying lesson that will make you cackle. In a heartfelt moment turned comical, Briggs realizes that his daughter is as cold and calculating as he is. Colton’s heavy-handed speech to his daughter almost mirrors Cage’s own acting career when he tells her that if she wants to make it in this world, then she needs to learn how to pretend to be somebody else.
In a misguided attempt to teach Brooke how to cry, Colton uses a memory of a crying mother at her son’s funeral they both attended a year prior as an example of how to act distressed. After failing miserably while yelling, “wah, wah, wah, my baby, my baby,” we witness Nicolas Cage staring down Ryan Kiera Armstrong with a “this is never gonna work” kind of look on his face before he declares it’s good enough to distract an officer whose horse they’re trying to steal. Despite the heavy subject matter that’s found in The Old Way, you will find yourself laughing at this entire exchange for days whenever you think about it.
The Old Way pales in comparison to classic Westerns like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but what it lacks in raw grit and depth of storytelling is certainly brought back by Nicolas Cage’s performance. Like many other straight-to-streaming Nicolas Cage films, we’re witnessing an acting talent that is disproportionate to what the screenplay is offering.
On the critical front, The Old Way garnered a 32 percent critical score against an audience score of 70 percent. In other words, The Old Way might very well rub some fans of the Western genre the wrong way, but is an absolute must-see for Nicolas Cage fans.
And we have to give credit where it’s due. Nicolas Cage’s upcoming release slate is intimidating, to say the least. He doesn’t necessarily have to keep starring in movies that go straight to video-on-demand or streaming these days. But it’s clear that his enthusiasm for acting is unmatched, and he had to jump in when the script for The Old Way made its rounds.
Avid Nicolas Cage fans may be disappointed by recent reports that suggest he’s going to retire from acting in the next few years. But given the Leaving Las Vegas actor’s tireless work ethic, it’s safe to say that there will be plenty more movies to work into your viewing rotation. The Old Way should be on the top of the list.
The Old Way is currently available on most streaming platforms, including Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, YouTube, and AppleTV.
