“Oh my God!  A Nicolas Cage western!?  This is going to be great!”

That was my initial reaction when I heard about The Old Way, a film in which Nicolas Cage plays a former gunslinger who returns to his old ways while seeking revenge for the murder of his wife.  Who knew which Nicolas Cage would show up for The Old Way?  Would we get the wild, unpredictable Cage?  Would we get the soulful and haunted Cage?  Would this be one of the films that Cage cared about or would this be one of the films that Cage clearly just made for the money?  Hearing that Nicolas Cage walked off the set because of an accident with one of the guns did not fill me with confidence.  (The armorer who worked on The Old Way was the same one who went on to work on Rust and again, that did not exactly fill me with confidence.)  Still, I was definitely curious to see The Old Way for myself.

Unfortunately, The Old Way is neither Cage at his best nor Cage at his most eccentric.  Instead, Cage gives a quiet and emotionally restrained performance as Colton Briggs.  When Briggs is first seen, he’s taking part in an extrajudicial execution and then coldly killing a man who first shoots him in the back.  Jump forward 20 years and, much like Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, Colton Briggs is now a married man and a somewhat uptight shop owner who rarely shows a hint of emotion.  His 10 year-old daughter (Ryan Kiera Armstrong) is as rebellious as Colton once was and she has no idea about Colton’s past.  However, when the nephew of the man that Colton killed at the start of the film, murders Colton’s wife, Colton sets out for revenge.  His daughter follows him, along with Marshal Jarret (Nick Searcy, giving the film’s best performance).  Jarret is a former friend of Colton’s but both men make it clear that they will kill the other if they have to.  That’s the old way.

It’s a typical western and, on a purely technical level, it’s not a bad one.  The cinematography is frequently gorgeous and the members of the rival gang are made up of memorable character actors like Clint Howard and Abraham Benrubi.  Obviously, a certain amount of care went into recreating the old west.  As I said before, Nick Searcy is ideally cast as Marshal Jarret and he gives a performance that will keep you guessing as to whether or not Jarret should be trusted.  Nicolas Cage is adequate in the lead role, even if he’s never quite as eccentric as most of his fans would probably prefer him to be.  When he first shows up, he’s wearing an obviously fake mustache but that’s about as odd as his performance gets.

But, in the end, The Old Way just isn’t a particularly memorable film.  It’s one of those films that you watch with the hope that it will suddenly spring an unexpected detail or a bizarre moment on the audience but it never happens.  The Old Way is way too formulaic for its own good, borrowing liberally from True Grit and Unforgiven without ever really establishing its own identity.