Old Henry (2021)

Written by Wuchak on March 13, 2024

How can you find sanctuary when violence shows up on your doorstep?

A father and son on a remote homestead in the eastern Oklahoma Territory in 1906 take in a wounded man, which attracts three men claiming to be law officers. Havoc ensues. Tim Blake Nelson plays the withered farmer while Stephen Dorff is on hand as the leader of the trio.

"Old Henry" (2021) includes Trace Adkins in a small role, which wasn’t a good sign since a couple of his recent Westerns weren’t up to par. I’m talking about “Stagecoach: The Texas Jack Story” and “The Virginian” (“Traded” and “Hickok” were much better, but nothing exceptional). Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised by “Old Henry.” Like those other modern Westerns, it was made on a shoestring budget but quality writing and acting win the day.

Mix the basic setting of “Echoes of War” with the Eastern locations of “The Long Riders” and the lonely brooding of “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” along with the production tone of a couple of those low-budget Trace Adkins’ Westerns and you’d have a good idea of this one. I don’t want to say more because there are quality surprises in store.

The movie runs 1 hour, 38 minutes, and was shot in Watertown, Tennessee, which is about 45 miles east of Nashville.

GRADE: A-/B+