'Old Henry': Meat & Potatoes Western With Tim Blake Nelson Has Few Surprises [Venice Review]

Surprisingly, in this era of revisionist Westerns, writer/director Potsy Ponciroli delivers a throwback in the form of an old-fashioned, meat-and-potatoes Western by-numbers with the humble ambitions that give it a B-movie ambience. The set-up is spare, and events are predictable; it’s almost like an exercise in stripped-back storytelling. The only odd thing about “Old Henry” is that it landed in the Venice Film Festival 2021 line-up at all.

The year is 1906, and we’re in Oklahoma Territory, home to Henry (Tim Blake Nelson): A Man With A Past. In the present, he is content to live a quiet life as a farmer raising his son Wyatt (Gavin Lewis). Questioned about his happiness with life as a hard-working farmer, he gives the mysterious and worldly answer, “You will discover there are worse arrangements.” When Henry stumbles on a wounded man Curry (Scott Haze), and a satchel full of money, swiftly followed by a posse of outlaws led by Ketchum (Stephen Dorff), his tranquility is disturbed, and his true identity comes to the fore.

If, like Radiohead, you long for “no alarms and no surprises, please,” then this is the film for you. All unfolds as if programmed by a Western-generating algorithm, for better and for worse. Fields of yellow wheat splattered in blood ripple in the winds; well-worn saddles sit on well-behaved horses, and all looks exactly as it should in this type of motion picture. Most thoroughly at home is Buster Scruggs himself, Tim Blake Nelson, whose double stripes as a Coen Brothers actor in “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” and “O’ Brother Where Art Thou,” proves more than the apprenticeship needed to be a star in this world. He is to the genre born, with his long character actor’s face and rangy physicality.

The virtues of this film stem from the authentic textures that suggest that Ponciroli (whose name even sounds like it belongs to a lone gunslinger) is a loving student of the Western. Dialogue is convincing, without being showy, with characters forever announcing that they are “Fixin’ teh” do this or that. There is a satisfaction to be found in details like a secret chest full of clippings, ten-gallon hats galore, and the “pp-ching” of bullets flying. Action set-pieces are elegantly choreographed, and one stand-out moment can be filed away under “cool as hell.”

Although there is much to admire on a technical and craft level, the absence of storytelling innovation gives Old Henry the sleepiness of a familiar lullaby or nursery rhyme. There is nothing sufficiently gripping in the mix to recommend it as an original property. Rather it seems to exist to fill a gap in programming for people with a particular taste. There is but one riddle to be solved: who is Old Henry? Sadly, the answer is not thrilling enough to mount a film upon. [C-]

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