The premise sounded really standard on paper… and sadly, it’s just as standard in the finished product.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 20, 2024

In the end The Old Way is minor Cage in a minor film, but lovers of Westerns and sleight-of-hand acting will find it a tolerable amusement.

| Original Score: B- | Jun 9, 2023

Yep! It's an oater like a saddle fits a horse.

| Original Score: C+ | Mar 29, 2023

There's little originality in Carl W. Lucas's contrive, utterly predictable script, blandly directed by Brett Donowho. Don't bother with this dismal Western.

| Original Score: 4/10 | Mar 20, 2023

Fans of westerns know the appeal of simple B-movies, but this one is still a bit disappointing.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 2, 2023

There IS a movie in there somewhere. I don’t know if they just needed more time or if they felt like they had gold on their hands but it could have benefited from one more trip through the drafting phase.

| Feb 7, 2023

We all want to see Nicolas Cage play a cowboy. The Old Way is not getting the job done.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 28, 2023

It’s a paint-by-numbers Western but Brett Donowho, directing a woeful script by Carl W. Lucas, could barely keep the colours within the lines.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 25, 2023

I had a mild revelation while watching The Old Way, a new Western revenge drama with comedic overtones directed by Brett Donowho and written by Carl W. Lucas: ‘Oh, I guess it is possible to make Nicolas Cage boring. Who knew!’

| Jan 23, 2023

Director Brett Downwho cleverly avoids unnecessary flourishes, leaving that to the adept cast. So the film strikes a traditional Wild West tone.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 19, 2023

The lack of nuance in the script hobbles what could have been an edgy feud that spans two decades but ends up slack, by-the-numbers and lacking in character development.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 18, 2023

For the 42 people who have lived for 30 years with the unanswered question of "What would Unforgiven be like if it were a Nic Cage movie?" -- here's the answer.

| Jan 18, 2023

It's just so bland and cheap-looking.

| Jan 18, 2023

The Old Way’s six-shooter is just firing blanks.

| Jan 18, 2023

Nicolas Cage phones in a performance which is too serious for the rousing shoot-‘em-up western this wants to be at times and not nearly serious enough for the underwritten Unforgiven backstory that slows everything to a crawl.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 16, 2023

Two elements make the picture worth watching: one is Nicolas Cage, wearily brutal as Colton Briggs, a man who has already completed a lifetime’s worth of killing. The other is Ryan Kiera Armstrong...

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 16, 2023

Gropes around at some promising ideas. But the movie is cut too close to the bone, pulling back to meat-and-potatoes genre beats whenever things threaten to get really interesting.

| Jan 14, 2023

... The best that can be said for The Old Way is that there’s only just over an hour and a half of it.

| Jan 14, 2023

This simple Western ultimately doesn't have terribly much to say, but Cage's hard-as-an-anvil performance, his chemistry with young Armstrong, and some playful dialogue make it worth a look.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 13, 2023

Thankfully, the film delivers a few little surprises before we get to the inevitable showdown with Noah Le Gros’s outlaw.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 13, 2023