OLD HENRY (2021)

There’s no question Westerns have been having a moment over the past decade or so.  Largely out of favor not so long ago, they remain hit & miss on the big screen, but are all over the place on home screens.*  And it’s not entirely Taylor Sheridan's doing!  Such resurrections need a nickname on the order of ‘60a Spaghetti Westerns, the anti-Westerns of the’50s or the post-WWII psychological Westerns of the late-‘40s.  These days, seemingly half debut on NetFlix only to quickly disappear.  But NetFlix Westerns not very catchy.  Why not Vacuum Westerns, since most get made solely to fill vacuums in scheduling quotas on streaming platforms?  Not that Vacuum Westerns need be pejorative.  Take this recent Oater, a sharp chamber piece from writer/director Potsy Ponciroli who deserves credit right from the start by forgoing ubiquitous stranger-comes-to-town tropes to focus on hardscrabble farmer Tim Blake Nelson, widowed and living alone with his disaffected teenage son, coming across an injured man with a bag of stolen cash.  Taking him home to recuperate (or preferably die), Blake assumes a posse will soon show to claim the guy and the loot.  But a posse of Sheriff & Deputies or a posse of bank-robbers?  The same question might apply to the injured man.  Lawman or outlaw, possibly a turncoat from the gang.  Meeting the challenge, mostly on his own, but helped (if that’s the word) by his all too eager boy and his neighboring brother-in-law.  Can he trust the recovering injured man to help?  And what’s behind the old farmer’s personal confidence and unexpected competence with weapons?  The son had no idea he even owned them.  Henry has a trick or two up his sleeve; a secret past so unexpected it’s less character twist than personal triple lutz.  Tim Blake Nelson, looking even shorter than his 5'5", with a rare leading role easily walks off with the film.  And it might be more to walk off with if director Ponciroliis had better control of P.O.V. and a more distinctive film technique.  More like you’d see in a Budd Boetticher B-Western or that Delmar Daves owned in his 3:10 TO YUMA/’57 days.  Still, this one makes for a good 'Vacuum Western.'  Though that title no help.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Kevin Costner’s late career hit in Sheridan’s YELLOWSTONE and hubristic miss with DOA big screen HORIZON/’24 exemplifies the risk.