Even if Westerns aren’t your thing (not my favorite genre), there is much to admire about this tight, efficient character study that just happens to be set in the Oklahoma Territory of 1906. But many elements are universal, and the ones that aren’t, like gunslingers who can shoot and ride a horse at the same time, are exciting and welcome in a pensive storyline that interrupts spells of calm with bands of explosive violence.
Tim Blake Nelson is the title character in “Old Henry”– a stern man of few words who is a single father to a son who is itching to break free from the isolated farm on which the two pass lonely days and dark nights. The son, Wyatt (Gavin Lewis) is plenty old enough to fire a gun, for example, but Henry is overprotective to a fault, and you can tell it’s because Henry is haunted by his past, which will be revealed in a satisfying and revelatory way.
But it starts with a horse minus a rider showing up at the farm. Henry smells trouble and leaves Wyatt at home while he rides off to look for the horse’s rider. What he finds is a man left for dead and a satchel of cash. Against his better judgment her brings both back to his house.
Here I will tread very lightly: The film has fun with identity. Who is Henry? Who is the man he saved, a robber or a lawman? And who are the posse of dudes who show up asking so many questions, armed men with menacing vibes and a story that they are lawmen looking for the man inside Henry’s house?
My lips are sealed, but for a quiet, kind of art house Western film, director Potsy Ponciroli ratchets up the tension heading into the final act, and sticks the lyrical landing.
Gavin Lewis as Wyatt 
Stephen Dorff as Ketchum
Nelson, whose hangdog mug and slow as molasses delivery made the Coen brothers’ films The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Oh Brother Where Art Thou extra fun, plays Henry straight and stolid. Those creepy guys from the posse can tell that this farmer probably knows his way around a shooting iron, but Henry doesn’t give much else away.
Old Henry Opens in Theatres October 1st. Get locations HERE | 3 ½ out of 4 Stars
