If you enjoy Westerns, I recommend this surprisingly gratifying redemption fable set in 1906 about a gruff, Scripture-quoting widower haunted by his past while trying to raise his restless teenage son Wyatt (Gavin Lewis) in peace and tranquility. Known as Old Henry (Tim Black Nelson), this crusty gunslinger is tending his modest homestead in the Oklahoma Territory when, after spotting a riderless horse with a bloody saddle, he rescues a gravely wounded young man who has been left to die in the grasslands.
Clutching a badge and a saddlebag of cash, he claims to be Sheriff Curry (Scott Haze), blindsided by bandits trying to reclaim their loot. Then the black-hatted scoundrel, Sheriff Sam Ketchum (Stephen Dorff), shows up, searching for an escaped thief. Caught between these tense two—ready for a shootout—skeptical Henry McCarty isn’t quite sure who to believe.
At the same time, both his adversaries realize he’s not holding a pistol-like any ‘farmer’ they’re ever seen before. “Who are you?” Wyatt asks. “You’re always preaching about being honest,” Wyatt probes. “I’ve done things I wish I could take back—a long time ago before your mom—things that you’ve got no business hearing.” Writer/director Potsy Ponciroli engages with his taut, yet deliberately poignant pacing, aided by John Matysiak’s evocative backwoods cinematography and Jordan Lehning’s ominous score. But the film belongs to wiry character actor Tim Blake Nelson, whose stubbled face with a long mustache is topped by long, greasy, stringy hair; he looks as if he hasn’t bathed in weeks. He’s compelling and, obviously, not quite what he seems. Recommended.