Nic Cage is a sad dad cowboy killer in the trailer for The Old Way

It’s kind of wild, in hindsight, that Nicolas Cage has never done a Western before. Doesn’t it just seem like something he’d have drifted to at some point over the years, either while prestige-ing it up, or in one of his Pay The Ghost/The Croods/Arsenal-style paycheck periods? And yet, no: His new film, The Old Way, is the first movie that’s used Cage’s unbeatable talent for squinting in a steely way at a sinful world on behalf of the oater genre. (Fun fact: If you’re writing about Westerns, you get to call them “oaters” at least once per story; it’s one of the purest joys of being an entertainment writer.)

And squint he does, and also shoot people, as clearly evidenced by the trailer for the film, which sees Cage and director Brett Donowho delivering something in an Unforgiven fit, with Cage playing a cold-blooded killer whose peaceful retirement ends when the woman he loves dies. The big twist here is that Cage’s character, retired murder man Colton Briggs, isn’t alone with his rage and grief over his dead wife: Instead, he’s accompanied by his daughter, played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong, who’s interested in picking up daddy’s trade. The result is something that plays a bit like a Western version of Lone Wolf And Cub. (Or, uh, Kick-Ass, if you want to go with a more modern and Cage-y take.) It looks pretty charming, especially since the film doesn’t look to be getting cute with its subject matter.

The Old Way is slated for arrival in theaters on January 6, 2023, before hitting the VOD services a week later. The film co-stars Shiloh Fernandez, Noah Le Gros, and Nick Searcy.