Mr. Movie | ‘Old Henry’ hits the bullseye for fans of Westerns. Tim Blake Nelson shines

I grew up being fed a steady diet of Western movies and TV shows. So did a lot of you.

By the 1970s, the genre was in serious dry-up mode. High demand for something to keep viewers hooked on their services, the streaming companies are now churning out a lot of original content and they’ll produce one or two Westerns a year.

Like most of their original productions, they’re usually not very good.

Once in awhile, though, one hits the proverbial bullseye. In this case, it’s “Old Henry.”

Tim Blake Nelson plays the title’s Henry. Set in the Oklahoma Territory in 1906, Henry is a boring old farmer who wears a hat that’s way too big for his 5’ 5” frame. He lives a quiet life with his son, Wyatt.

The kid is the only person within 50-miles who isn’t allowed to own a gun, or even shoot one. The boy wants to stretch out a bit and go somewhere more interesting than Oklahoma.

And he wants to play with guns.

That dream becomes a reality when a riderless horse wanders onto the farm. Henry tracks where the horse has been and finds an almost dead rider with a satchel of money. He takes both home and knows that whoever shot the guy is probably on his trail.

That turns out to be true when three men ride up a couple of days later wanting to know if Henry and his son have seen the man.

A denial leads to suspicion and suspicion ultimately leads to violence and it’s then we learn what we already knew, Henry wasn’t always a commonplace farmer.

He used to be a very dangerous man.

It’s hard to imagine Nelson as a cold-blooded outlaw. He managed to pull off a comic gunslinger routine in the Coen Brothers, “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” It was more spoof than serious.

This part, however, is life and death business and a whole different animal.

The diminutive, weighing next-to-nothing, Nelson is deadly serious as the deadlier than deadly Henry. While he’s not that imposing, Nelson manages to look menacing and pulls it off.

Lose the dorky hat and by the film’s end, you are convinced that he just might be lethal to anyone getting on his bad side. He’s so good that you can mostly ignore the terrible dialogue the poor guy is forced to utter while sending this bad guy and that into eternity.

“Old Henry” is written and directed by Potsy Ponciroli. He hasn’t done anything you’d likely know. All through the movie, Ponciroli rips cinematography concepts, scenery and set ideas from a dozen classic Western producers and directors. His script is the same.

Not much is new.

Ponciroli also gets reasonably good performances from country music star, Trace Adkins, Scott Haze (“Venom,” “ Antlers”) and Gavin Lewis of TV’s “Little Fires Everywhere.”

The bad guys — headed by an excellent performance from character actor, Stephen Dorff — are as cliche as Ponciroli’s concept. When it comes to villains, there isn’t a whole lot of new under an old Western sun.

That’s just a fact, not a complaint.

The complaints start at the climax of the film. With nowhere original to go, Ponciroli’s “Old Henry” starts to actually look old.

The predictable shootout is crammed with almost laughable scenes as Henry, his son and the guy he saved dodge a hail of bullets while their bullets unfailingly hit their target.

Things fall completely apart when Ponciroli puts in a really dumb twist at the end.

Set the twist and the predictability aside, and this Western is a pretty good one. My recommendation is gather up your posse of Western film fans, strap on the old six-gun, saddle up and see this one.

It’s not hard to find.

Not rated but probably R. It can be streamed on various streaming sources.

Rating: 4 out of 5

This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 1:20 PM with the headline "Mr. Movie | ‘Old Henry’ hits the bullseye for fans of Westerns. Tim Blake Nelson shines."