old man movie review

Old Man offers a compelling performance from Stephen Lang, but not much else

Stephen lang is deliriously creepy in the disappointing cat-and-mouse thriller old man.

[L-R] Patch Darragh as “Bible Salesman” and Stephen Lang as “Old Man” in the thriller, OLD MAN, an RLJE Films release

Old Man is a film that feels like it should work a lot better than it does. It’s an example of filmmaking that makes use of its minimal resources to great effect, a testament to the power of budget productions to create an entertaining experience as marshaled by director Lucky McKee. Writer Joel Veach has crafted a scenario that is both mysterious and engaging, and Stephen Lang’s titular performance is a tightrope walk of hilarity and menace. So why does Old Man still feel like a disappointment when the credits roll?

In the single-room cabin that comprises the entirety of the film’s setting, an unnamed old man (Stephen Lang) wakes up in a disoriented fog, grumbling to himself about how that dastardly dog Rascal has pissed on his floor and left him alone yet again. A knock at the door pulls him out of his angry ruminations, as the mild-mannered Joe (Marc Senter) comes calling, having stumbled upon the old man’s cabin while lost hiking in the woods. The old man invites Joe inside at the barrel of a shotgun, expressing a paranoid reluctance to let the younger man into his home without assurances of safety that gives way to a blatant desire for company. But the old man’s erratic and unpredictable behavior begs the question of whether Joe will survive the encounter.

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Old Man Reviews

Old Man is a unique thriller with what is arguably the best performance by Stephen Lang to date.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jul 11, 2023

If you’re looking for a traditional horror movie with reliable frights doled out in a recognizable pattern, well, McKee’s name alone should have been warning enough that you’re in the wrong place.

Full Review | Jun 13, 2023

McKee’s camera, which moves around like a living presence and always seems to be on the brink of discovering something terrible, makes it impossible to relax for long.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | May 31, 2023

An unexceptional psychological horror from director Lucky McKee that feels dated and clunky, with some fairly ropey acting – or maybe that is down to the shaky lines put into the actors’ mouths.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | May 29, 2023

A clear project of dedication from all involved, Old Man shows a new side to McKee’s directorial talents, teasing more exciting projects to come.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 18, 2022

Old Man is a mysterious cinematic chamber play that tackles the weight of guilt. The film revolves around male possessiveness—the urge for men to lay claim and ownership to people, places, and things, though especially women.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 6, 2022

'Avatar' alum's incendiary performance turns stage-like tale into a keeper.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 22, 2022

In Lucky McKee’s claustrophobic psychodrama, two men must cohabit in a cabin in the woods – and in their own poisonous masculinity

Full Review | Oct 19, 2022

For a film about two men in a tiny cabin, there’s never a dull moment... From there it either gets silly or interesting, depending on one’s preference for such things – but it never gets old.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 18, 2022

Lang and Senter keep it afloat. They’re nice fits for Veach’s off-kilter story, and McKee smartly leans on his two actors and their weird yet fascinating chemistry.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 17, 2022

Lang can go through gruffness, self-pity, menace, warmth, grief, and pretty much every other aspect of human emotion in a split second without us ever once wondering how he gets from one to the other.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Oct 17, 2022

More pretentious than provocative...while it’s nice that Lang was allowed to take the wheel for a change, it’s a pity the vehicle he’s driving wheezes along the way and sputters to a stop.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Oct 16, 2022

McKee delivers something we probably did not see coming, something that's bizarre and unsettling, and a bit disappointing all at the same time, given that our imaginations have been constantly buzzing up to the last stretch.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 15, 2022

While not entirely original or unpredictable, this dark look into a character’s soul is held together with excellent acting by Stephen Lang.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 14, 2022

McKee’s darker genre touches are sorely missed in Old Man, which is too reliant on performances that outshine a story seen coming like an asteroid the size of Mars.

Full Review | Original Score: 6.5/10 | Oct 14, 2022

The movie builds up enough steam, and has a sufficient supply of jolts, to make Old Man stick to the ribs at least a little by the time it’s over.

A superior example of how flavorful dialogue, talented actors and excellent staging can make something familiar really pop.

Full Review | Oct 14, 2022

The (un)reality of what’s happening beneath the surface is hardly unique or secretive, but [how] Veach writes its revelations and McKee films its visual labyrinth spanning past, present, and purgatory ensure the drama unfolding is never without intrigue.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Oct 14, 2022

It’s essentially a two-character story where we are not quite of how much of a grip on reality one of them has. It’s worth a look primarily due to an intense performance by Stephen Lang as the otherwise-unnamed title character.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 14, 2022

Stephen Lang and Marc Senter have some tense chemistry together, but Old Man is primarily a slog that leaves you feeling like an old man when you come out the other side

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 14, 2022

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, black writers week, fx on hulu's the old man is a bold, wise vehicle for jeff bridges.

Becoming a well-trained, wise assassin is a popular look for the aging movie star, and in its most successful cases, it has helped redefine how we see different actors. It's been custom-tailored for the likes of Liam Neeson , Denzel Washington , Tom Cruise , Bob Odenkirk , Sean Penn , and now, Jeff Bridges . Bridges continues to be one of the most organic actors out there, even in the role of ass-kicker: you believe Bridges in “The Old Man” cooking eggs and listening to someone share a sad life story, just as much as you do watching him scuffle for his life against a younger, bigger assassin in a flipped-over SUV. As a vehicle for Bridges himself, “The Old Man” becomes an expansion of his gentle nature, his wisdom. And in a larger sense, the greatness of Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine's “The Old Man” reminds us of the appeal of such a project—to see an actor test their limits across the board, especially when the storytelling itself plays everything so close to the chest.

Bridges' character is a man of mystery known by many names, but he most famously goes by Dan Chase. When we first meet him, Chase is living in a quiet town with his two very obedient Rottweilers, taking worried phone calls from his daughter about his lessening condition. Chase’s harmonious life is disrupted when someone comes to his house and tries to shoot him with a silencer—it's no ordinary break-in, and the attention from local police to the crime scene has him packing. Chase gets a call from an old friend, a CIA figurehead named Harold Harper (a somber, aching John Lithgow ), who we see standing in front of a giant jet with numerous agents ready to disperse. Harper gives Chase a head’s up, that Chase is currently being hunted to be captured. Harper offers him one last chance: disappear forever, and this phone call can be their last, and their secret. But if he resists, Harper and the CIA will go after his daughter, the one human connection that Chase has after his wife passed.

Chase doesn’t take Harper’s offer, which breaks his friend’s heart, and kicks off a present-day hunt inspired by actions of the past. Chase and Harper go farther back than they want to remember, to a messy deal in the Middle East and the killing of Russians, but for "the wrong side." The details can initially be confusing, and they’re always complicated. It's about ugly political optics, a warlord, and the woman who became Chase’s wife, all mixed with the air of being anti-glory days. These flashbacks also display the series’ commitment to its characters—both are played to a tee by younger actors, with Bill Heck getting Bridges’ contemplative lip-smacking, and Christopher Redman nailing Lithgow’s cadences.

Based on the book by Thomas Perry, “The Old Man” displays its awareness that life is a story. It’s not just about the paintings that introduce the episode, but how the characters talk about these twisty as a story, as a game that may not make sense to people outside of it, one that has been ongoing and lays dormant. Among the shadowy, sterile boardrooms at the CIA office, Harper holds secrets about Chase while being pushed by a new guy in the office, Raymond (E.J. Bonilla). Raymond has no idea what's motivating his hunt for Chase; no one does. Relationships are their own stories, and this series has many that are shrouded in secrecy, so much so that they are used for twists that only heighten just how personal this is for everyone.

Unfolding these events with strong pacing, "The Old Man" proves to be a confidently constructed observation of this uncertain future and revisiting of the past. But with its focus on making this spy game as real as possible, a few narrative twists stand out as being overzealous; there are some close-calls made just to keep certain pieces on the chessboard. And at least in the first four episodes provided for review, "The Old Man" can get a little tangled when Chase has horror-lite nightmares about his wife’s degenerative mental condition.

It’s a lot to take in, and the journey gives us a surrogate with Amy Brenneman ’s performance. She enters into the picture later, as someone who learns what it feels like inside Chase's bubble of secrets. Her work is at times incredibly tender, while in other moments she’s silently freaked out about the casual chaos of Chase’s world. She helps color the different feelings that play a major part in this story, of isolation, of alternate warmth, and the helplessness when you don’t have a choice between the two.

The first two stunning episodes are directed by Jon Watts , most known for the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies, and this story takes him back to the more brutal and restrained work like his pre-Marvel film “ Cop Car .” Watts can still conjure some uncomfortable violence, with a creeping dread accompanying our uncertainty of how a brutal fight will end. The first episode has a great example of the power that can be created by depicting action with careful, minimalist elements—a dark road at night, lit only by headlights—and the camera slowly moves from one distinct framing to the next, creating tension. One doesn’t normally associate a tip-toeing camera and quiet long takes with thrills, but that’s just part of the magic of “The Old Man.” As Lithgow’s character says to his grandchild in the very beginning, “Space is the breath of art," and the filmmaking of “The Old Man” respects that beautifully.

Often at the center, Bridges is a lot of fun to watch in this role, negotiating his sensitive side with a physical savviness. It’s not about martial arts but watching him wrestle with another killer in cramped spaces for long shots, while the camera’s held gaze still tells us we are not looking at a stuntman. (When Chase got his head slammed against a kitchen cabinet, I audibly responded with a big “Damn,” fully caught up in the series' body-slamming action.) His physicality is reflective of the power within his performance, displaying a rawness we've not yet seen before from Bridges.

And yet the emotional power of this series often comes down to its scenes of phone calls, which capture characters hiding away from everyone else, tending to their secrets. Many stories can use scenes of characters talking on the phone to more or less fill in the blanks, but “The Old Man” has many such conversations that ache, that are fused with mystery, and that make the story even bigger than its international scale. It’s because “The Old Man” remains focused on pain—the life-or-death nature of a fight, or the dread of loss that haunts everyone despite violence being a work experience. Everyone has a pressure point in their closest relationships. This is a bold, wise series, with a knockout performance from Bridges leading the way.

The first four episodes were screened for review. "The Old Man" premieres on FX on Hulu today, June 16.

Nick Allen is the former Senior Editor at RogerEbert.com and a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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‘The Old Man’ Review: Jeff Bridges Comes to TV and Goes on the Run

An American treasure, from “The Last Picture Show” to the Dude, plays an aging but still lethal operative in a moody thriller on FX.

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By Mike Hale

With the advent of peak TV, and its bidding wars for talent, came a rush of film legends to smaller screens. Within the last decade, performers at the level of Al Pacino , Jane Fonda , Julia Roberts and Christopher Walken suddenly discovered that it wasn’t beneath their dignity to star in a regular old television series.

It may seem as if nearly everyone who matters had already made the move, but this week TV snares another big name: 72-year-old Jeff Bridges , a true member of the aristocracy of American acting. He has made a few guest appearances over the years, including with his father on “Sea Hunt” and “The Lloyd Bridges Show” 60 years ago. But “The Old Man,” a moody, deliberate, seven-episode thriller premiering Thursday on FX, is the first series he can call his own.

Bridges plays Dan Chase, a former C.I.A. agent who got involved in bad business in Afghanistan during that country’s war with the Soviet Union and had to go underground; he is flushed out of hiding when the series begins, and we watch as he goes on the run and tries to figure out who is after him, so many years down the road.

“The Old Man” offers the reliable entertainment value of seeing a silver-haired professional bring his deadly skills to bear against younger opponents, and the four episodes available for review feature several long, vicious, hand-to-hand battles that will have you squirming with both dread and sympathy.

This is territory that has already been staked out by contemporaries of Bridges’s like Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and, pre-eminently, Liam Neeson. But the series, based on a novel by Thomas Perry and developed for TV by Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine (who collaborated on “Black Sails” and “Human Target”), has more on its mind than cheering while the old guy kicks some butt.

Chase is a Cold War true believer who went beyond the bounds of his assignment in Afghanistan, and there are elements of Graham Greene’s Vietnam-era quiet American in his character — the warrior whose naïve idealism and certainty (combined with a weakness for a local woman) makes him dangerous. He also has an artless arrogance that can be charming right up until it turns frightening, a quality showcased in his accidental relationship with Zoe McDonald (Amy Brenneman), a lonely woman he encounters during his flight.

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‘Old Man’ Review: Stephen Lang Stars in Psychological Thriller That Brings Nothing New to the Table

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Whenever a movie boils its structure down to a single scenario and a handful of characters, it has to rely on the talent of its actors and the strength of its dialogue in order to keep viewers interested. This can result in interesting experiences such as the inventive 127 Hours , the dialogue-heavy What's In a Name? , or the surprisingly tense Buried . Much like these movies, Old Man knows it has to keep viewers interested, but it fails to perceive what interesting is.

Directed by Lucky McKee , the story follows the old man from the title, played by Stephen Lang ( Avatar ). We follow him as he wakes up in an isolated cabin and takes a while to get his bearings. He is then visited by a hiker who wandered off into a forest, got lost, and decided to ask for help. The old man feels threatened by Joe’s ( Marc Senter ) presence, and the big question is: Who’s invading whose space?

During Old Man ’s initial moments, it’s pretty easy to buy into the story and be intrigued by whatever’s happening between the two characters. You can’t help but wonder what is going on with both men, and for 20 minutes or so you can get fully invested in discovering where the story is going to turn out. But then you get the sense that the movie isn’t going anywhere, and the more time passes, the more you realize your suspicions are correct. Especially after the thriller aspects start to die out.

RELATED: 10 Best Movies That Take Place in Mostly One Location

The main problem of Old Man is that it never offers information that is interesting enough to keep viewers intrigued. During most of its runtime, the movie relies on lengthy monologues throughout which the characters reveal information about their past. However, the performances fail to draw the audience in, and the excess info dumping becomes the cinematic equivalent of listening to a loquacious person tell their life story as you wait for your turn in line at the DMV.

This is only made worse by the movie’s choice to keep Joe a mystery throughout the entire movie: In a clear effort not to give anything away before the movie’s final moments, Senter’s role is watered down to a one-note performance that prompts you to not care about him or his story. The longer he stays in the cabin, the less you fear that he's potentially in danger, and the less you wonder if he’s a threat. He just ends up being a sounding board for the old man, which is a terrible thing for a movie rooted in the thriller genre.

Once the initial thrill is gone, you can only hope for compelling dynamics between the two characters, or that you feel a connection to them. That doesn’t happen here. From its very start, Old Man goes out of its way to establish its title character as someone you can’t trust, with unpredictable behavior and shady motivations. On the other hand, you have Joe, who comes into that setting as a victim of sorts, but some flashbacks reveal he might not be one. So who are you going to root for?

The answer comes once the cards are on the table and all is revealed. In order to avoid major spoilers, let’s just say that a woman comes into play. But, surprisingly, that doesn’t help or improve the story at all. For its final act, Old Man thinks it is sending a powerful message, when in reality it’s just late to the party when it comes to female representation. The movie completely dehumanizes its only female character – literally – and makes it clear that its endgame is sending a simplistic message through overdone tropes.

Which makes me wonder: In this day and age, are these two characters really the best people to tell this story? Old Man seems content with not being diverse, and delivering twists we’ve seen a million times. Most of those twists are pretty easy to see coming, which explains why Joel Veach 's script only spills the beans on its very last moments. Not every movie has to be a manifesto, of course, but Old Man brings nothing to the table in any aspect. If you’re going to limit your setting this much, you have to give the audience something, whether it’s a truly compelling story, stellar performances, or an edge-of-your-seat mystery. Unfortunately, this movie has none to give.

Old Man is a psychological thriller that fails to understand what it takes for a story with that many limitations to work. On the aspects it does well – guilt and remorse – it tells a story we’ve seen a million times, and it’s not hard to see its big reveals coming. On the less obvious elements, the movie undermines its own message by silencing one of its most important characters and choosing instead to give the spotlight to the ones that bring nothing new to the table.

Old Man comes to theaters and VOD services on October 14.

Movie Reviews
Stephen Lang

Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – Old Man (2022)

June 7, 2023 by Robert Kojder

Old Man , 2022.

Directed by Lucky McKee. Starring Stephen Lang, Marc Senter, Patch Darragh, and Liana Wright-Mark.

When a lost hiker stumbles upon an erratic old man living in the woods, he could never have imagined the nightmare that awaits.

An old man is jolted awake agape, presumably by a nightmare. That’s how director Lucky McKee opens Old Man , which benefits from a scenery-chewing gonzo performance from Stephen Lang.

Living in an isolated cabin cooped up in the mountains, the nameless titular old man frantically scrambles about, searching for his dog that must have run off in the night. It’s an extended sequence that allows Stephen Lang to establish the unhinged kookiness of the character while viewers survey the cramped, dusty, and dirty surroundings filled with shelves and bottles.

The above goes on for nearly 10 minutes but, like most of Old Man , remains engaging only because Stephen Lang is aware giving an unapologetically nutty performance that plays into senility, paranoia, and crazed menace is the only possible way to save Joel Veach’s transparent script.

A lost hiker named Joe (Marc Senter) arrives, with the old man putting up his guard and retrieving his shotgun to question him on various topics. Even though Joe is confused and scared, there’s also something unmistakably off about him as he is forced to continue listening and interacting with the old man.

For the first 30 minutes, these conversations are relatively compelling, touching on whether or not the old man intends to hurt Joe and a vague summary of what brought Joe out here. After a small level of trust is established, Joe believes the old man that a nasty storm is coming and that there is no choice but to stay the night.

Director Lucky McKee is coaching these actors to get the most cinematic turns possible for all of the material, but Joel Veach’s script is so talky that once the two characters get into a deep discussion or to, it’s laughably obvious what game the movie is playing here. Then it becomes painful, considering there are no intentions to reveal those cards until the final 20 minutes.

Old Man is a 97-minute movie that drastically needs to be cut down into a lean 70 minutes that ramps up the intensity of these dialogue exchanges so that the plot twist is masked. The twist is unquestionably telegraphed and easy to pick up, doubly so what the film’s lethargic pacing. There’s also a case to be made that this would work better as a stage play, albeit with a serious writing overhaul.

Without saying too much, there is a turn into mysticism that feels hollow and barely developed. It’s one thing for the big picture of this story to be picked up on relatively early, but other elements of Old Man feel as if everyone is making things up as they go. An attempted message about spiritual healing falls flat, as does commentary on religion.

Stephen Lang and Marc Senter have some tense chemistry together, but Old Man is primarily a slog that leaves you feeling like an old man when you come out the other side.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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The Ending Of Old Man (2022) Explained

There's something otherworldly, and if we're honest, a bit unnerving about an old log cabin in the woods with smoke coming from its chimney. What should be seen as a quaint and comforting retreat from the madness of crowds and ills of civilization is all too often the domain of a witch or a killer — or even a portal into a realm of neverending horror. At least it is in fairytales and films. Director Lucky McKee uses the trope of an unhinged outsider living in a remote cabin to great effect in his 2022 movie "Old Man." Stephen Lang is on fire as the title character, who keeps both the hapless hiker Joe (Marc Senter) and the audience on the edge of their seats with his paranoid, psychotic, and powerhouse performance.

"Old Man" has no star-studded cast, special effects, or stunning locations to keep the audience sidetracked or engaged for the duration. What it does have is two actors on top of their game, some cracking dialogue, and a director looking to do something different. As McKee explained to ComingSoon.net , working within the confines of a small space excited him because he wondered if the interaction between two characters and their constant probing of each other could grab and hold the audience's attention.

"Old Man" not only keeps the audience guessing but pays off their commitment with a tasty little twist that makes you want to rewind to the beginning and go again. Let's take another trip to the cabin and uncover what the ending of "Old Man is really all about.

What you need to remember about the plot of Old Man

"Old Man" begins with the title character waking from a nightmare and angrily lurching around his cabin looking for what we presume is his dog, Rascal, who has gone walkabout. Stephen Lang's character is unnerving from the get-go, not just because he's dressed in an outfit that resembles a red prison jumpsuit from the Depression era, but because of the threats he begins to mutter about his pet dog. As he paces, the old man rants that the penalty for leaving him is death. He barks that when Rascal returns he'll throw him in the fire, pick his bones clean, and wash it down with a little hooch before peeing on his ashes. It's clear he's not well, and has abandonment issues.

Into this cauldron of simmering menace walks Joe, a hiker who has lost his way and come to the cabin seeking help. What he gets is a shotgun in his face and accusations that he is either a serial killer or has been sent by the old man's wife on a mission of ill intent. After being soundly interrogated by the old man, Joe reveals marital and employment troubles led him back to the wild country where he used to feel safe as a boy — yet he has no real recollection of how he came to find the cabin. The two characters settle into easy conversation but the old man continues to alarm Joe with his erratic behavior and stories until he finally flees the cabin and Rascal, who is not a dog but a kind of grizzly outlaw figure, returns. It's at this point things get really interesting.

What happened at the end of Old Man

When Rascal (also played by Marc Senter) enters proceedings, looking like a character dragged screaming from the darkest bowels of the Old West, the old man's persona changes from alpha male to a beaten and broken beta in the blink of an eye. Rascal is far from a scolded dog, but instead a vicious bully who has been out hunting for food. Whimpering like a wounded animal, the old man asks Rascal what he's done with Joe. When the old man threatens to shoot Rascal unless he tells him, the cowboy challenges his strength before snatching the gun. He then calls the old man weak, and says "It's no wonder she left you." Rascal then says he's tired of reminding the old man what really happened and offers him a bottle containing water from the fabled purple lake.

The old man drinks and a box in the room opens by the interior push of a woman's hand. Rascal forces him to enter the box, and the old man steps into a past he has been running frantically from. It's revealed that Joe was simply a younger version of the old man who killed his wife (Liana Wright-Mark) and her lover, a Bible salesman ( Patch Darragh ). Upon returning to the present, the old man sees the ghost of his butchered wife standing in the box and begs her forgiveness, to which she replies, "It don't work that way."

The movie ends with Rascal saying, "You're looking tired old man. You need to rest now." The beaten old man climbs into bed and Rascal says, "I'll come back later, I always do." The final shot sees the old man falling asleep, waking from a nightmare, and crying out for Rascal — and the cycle begins again.

What the end of Old Man means

In a bid to find some sort of salvation and forgiveness for killing his wife and her lover, the old man has conjured up a younger version of himself from his imagination. Joe the hiker is simply a projection of the old man in a more idealized and innocent form. The old man holds conversations and asks questions of Joe in a search for understanding and atonement of his crimes. He congratulates Joe on working for a living and doing the right thing, because he is enhancing the positives he believes can be found in his own character. However, the old man is still unable to face the full weight of his actions and hides from them in half-truths, fairytales, imaginary scenarios, and bravado.

The old man will stay perpetually trapped in the cabin in the woods, which is a metaphor for a mental prison of his own making, as long as he continues to run from his actions. The ending symbolizes how the power of denial can shape reality and how the worst hells are the ones we create for ourselves. When the old man's torment is over at the end of the film, in a sense it is just beginning. He goes to sleep unforgiven and unredeemed with the terrible knowledge of the full magnitude of his crimes. Plagued by nightmares, the film ends at the beginning with the old man waking up, alone, confused, and oblivious to the neverending horror that is his existence.

Another possible explanation of the ending

Although the old man could have fled to the cabin straight after killing his wife and lived there for years, it could also be seen as a kind of purgatory or hell. Is the old man destined to live the same day over and over again until he atones for his sins? It's not explained exactly what the old man did in the aftermath of killing his wife and the Bible salesman. He could have fled the scene and returned to an area where Joe confesses he always felt safe as a child. Did he live there alone in the wilderness slowly going insane with guilt and remorse? Or did he kill himself in the immediate aftermath of his crimes and the cabin is merely a drawn-out and tormenting afterlife?

The moans both the old man and Joe said lured them to the cabin are those of their wife making love to the salesman, but after that, they can recall nothing but the fairytale appearance of a cabin in the woods with smoke coming from the chimney. Is the old man rotting inside a psychiatric prison somewhere, whilst living a vivid fantasy life inside his mind because he is unable to acknowledge the enormity of the act he's committed? Did his imagination transform an all-too-human crime into the stuff of myth? The cabin is both a sanctuary and a prison. It is a place where all time folds in upon itself and defies reason or rhyme. Did Joe commit the murders, flee to the cabin, and imagine an older version of himself crazed with time and guilt talking to him before the passing of days made that nightmare a reality?

What is the significance of Rascal?

For a large portion of the film, the viewer is left believing Rascal is the old man's badly mistreated dog. However, in the end, we see Rascal is a high plains drifter and domineering type of figure who the old man is terrified of. His sole purpose seems to be tormenting and abusing the old man, and it is telling that he is played by the same actor who also plays Joe. Rascal is a sort of rugged cowboy who lives by his wits and shoots from the hip. He's the male figure that the old man always aspired to be in his younger years and who he pretends to be to Joe. It's his macho and misogynistic side that makes him unable to let go of the anger that fueled the murders. He tells Joe that the trouble with the younger generation is that they have no taste for violence and refers to himself as a spartan.

There is also a part of the old man who desperately seeks salvation, as he tells Joe, "It's nice when you're lost and someone can help you find your way." Although Joe is at face value the polar opposite of the old man, you can see the anger that will fuel his transformation when he laments how he can't understand why everything has gone so wrong when he's done everything right. He feels the world is weighing heavy on his shoulders and life is conspiring against him but he's powerless to act. Rascal is the character he must become to commit murder and also the one he needs to scapegoat his crimes as an old man.

Why does the old man pretend he tortured the Bible salesman before letting him go?

When the old man recounts to Joe his hatred for salesmen and gleefully explains how he drugged and tortured a Bible peddler before letting him go, it suggests a wilful rewriting of the past. The old man knows in reality he shouldn't have gone as far as killing his wife's lover but is unable to let go of the hatred he feels for him, along with his burning desire for vengeance. And so he invents graphically detailed stories that feature him as a wisecracking protagonist who is always in the driving seat. In the old man's tale, the Bible salesman is a bumbling and odious fool who is easily outsmarted and outwitted by the superior and cooler old dude. In reality, he was bedding the old man's wife behind his back.

The conflicted emotions that the old man has regarding the Bible salesman become evident when Joe is visibly aghast at the old man's brutality towards him. He asks, "What did you do?" and is obviously alarmed. The old man just snickers and in one of his most callous moments does a gross caricature of the Bible merchant by reciting "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death." This savage impersonation takes on a much darker tone at the film's end when the viewer realizes that in reality, the Bible salesman frantically repeats the Hail Mary before Joe shoots him. The old man never tortured him, never taught him a lesson, never forgave him, and never showed mercy — he just shot him in cold blood. As long as he tells the story with such savage glee he remains in denial.

What do the purple lake and wooden chest symbolize?

As someone trapped in a cabin in the woods after killing his wife and her lover, the old man's plight is like the fairytale the Brothers Grimm never wrote, rich with symbolism. It has the cabin with smoke coming from the chimney, the old hermit of the woods, the innocent traveler who may not be all he seems, and the sense of something unspoken and hidden. The supernatural aspect of the story develops further when the old man reveals to Joe that it was the quest for the fabled purple lake that led him to the cabin. He recalls that along the way, he encountered an angry leopard whom he had to kill heroically. The head of the leopard with the eyes of his dead wife hangs on his wall as a trophy and tribute to a man who won't be messed with. Its symbolism is evident, but what about the wooden chest and the purple lake?

In his story, the old man mentions the purple lake as a place where wounded animals go to restore their health and vitality. He doesn't mention the wooden chest, but the camera tracks it constantly when he's talking about his wife and it's the place he enters to revisit the past. It's likely that after killing his wife he placed her in the box and then took it to some high and lonely lake in the smoky mountains where he disposed of the body. Her blood may have turned the water in the immediate vicinity a strange shade of purple. Hence, the purple lake — a place in reality where bloated corpses float obscenely, but in the old man's warped mind, a fabled place where noble creatures go to lick their wounds.

What has Stephen Lang said about the ending?

When actor Stephen Lang was asked by Screen Rant how he viewed the big reveal at the ending of "Old Man," he explained that, "The entire film can take place within the blink of an eye behind the eyeball of the man who's kind of within this fevered dream." In other words, the ending of "Old Man" is open to interpretation. Lang added that he doesn't feel it matters how real the events are in the movie, because the character is like a gerbil on a treadmill with no end in sight and his descent into madness is the driving motivation behind everything. He described the ending as both creepy and sad and called the atmosphere in the film paramount.

In an interview with ComingSoon.net , Lang also confessed that when he first read the script he was scratching his head in puzzlement and asking, "What the hell is going on here? What's happening here exactly?" However, he admitted that the same confusion was what intrigued him and convinced him to play the part. He said, "I found it very, very difficult to put my finger on exactly what was going on. It was like trying to capture mercury in your hand, this thing."

What director Lucky McKee said about the ending of Old Man

When a twist at the end of a movie works well, it's almost compulsory to give it a repeat viewing just to watch everything that preceded it in a different light. It's something that director Lucky McKee had in the back of his mind when making "Old Man." In an interview with ComingSoon.net , he explained, "I think that any movie that hinges on a twist being the thing that gives it success is doomed to failure." However, McKee believes the twist at the end of "Old Man" works because it's the film's mystery and tension that drives its momentum upon first viewing.

However, its twist invites the viewer back in for a second watch because, "When you do watch it again, you start to see all of this layering and all of this subconscious stuff that we were putting in there that ultimately all makes sense with the way the thing turns out." Mckee revealed that the thing in Joel Veach's script that made an immediate impression upon him was how familiar he was with the type of character "Old Man" featured and the unjudgmental nature of the story. Mckee said, "I'd grown up in very rural kind of country environments. I knew those characters." He also added, "I don't want to be imposing my view of right and wrong and put this moral stamp over it."

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Review: 'The Old Man' is worth watching for Jeff Bridges' performance

Eric Deggans

FX's The Old Man can be predictable, but the performance by star Jeff Bridges — who plays a retired CIA operative living under a fake name — makes it worthwhile.

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Jeff Bridges is spectacular in this whip-smart spy thriller

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The Old Man ★★★★½

When we first see Jeff Bridges in The Old Man he is just that – an old man, his sleep disturbed by a weak bladder, aching bones and the needs of a dementia-stricken wife. By the end of the first episode, the picture is more complex. He’s a tough, wily old bastard willing to do anything to survive.

Bridges is the aptly named Dan Chase, and after 30 years of living in peaceful obscurity, he’s suddenly on the run. It’s soon apparent that’s not his real name, nor his only one.

Jeff Bridges as Dan Chase, a former CIA operative whose 30-odd years of peaceful obscurity comes to an abrupt and brutal end in The Old Man. Credit: Prashant Gupta/FX

As a young CIA operative in Afghanistan, played by Bill Heck, he’s called Jon. In the present day, where he’s trying to evade payback for whatever happened back then, he has a stash of cash and a swag of false identities, as well as a range of places to hole up.

Based on the four episodes (of seven) made available for preview, The Old Man is a brilliantly written, acted and directed thriller that keeps our sympathies shifting throughout. It’s also a whip-smart tale about an old codger who rages against the dying of the light and is willing to put a bullet through anyone who tries to snuff it out early.

The genius of the show is that while we want Chase to make it, we’re never entirely sure we should want that. He is capable of terrible things, and when his path crosses that of Zoe (Amy Brenneman), whose only mistake is to allow him to rent a cabin from her, the old man begins to look more threat than threatened. Her presence complicates his flight and introduces a rich moral dimension to the propulsive action dynamic.

There are echoes of the recent thriller Pieces of Her in all this. There Toni Collette played a woman whose quiet life is disrupted when scores from her past demand to be settled. The question of identity – of the stories people tell about and to themselves, and the collateral damage those fabrications have on the people around them – is central to both.

The Old Man , though, is a superior project. The casting is superb: Heck looks convincingly like a younger Bridges, while Hiam Abbas and Leem Lubany as his older and younger wife and John Lithgow/Christopher Redman as the older/younger boss Harold Harper could serve as proof that time travel is possible. The Afghan village sets (actually built in the US) and the superbly moody score by T Bone Burnett and Patrick Warren ratchet up the tension and believability no end.

Bill Heck as the young Dan Chase. Credit: Raymond Liu/FX

The one point at which The Old Man really stretches credibility is the amount of punishment Chase is subjected to. Bridges is 72, and seeing him shuffle off for a pee every couple of hours is way more believable than watching him wrestle and defeat an agent half his age.

He emerges from these encounters bruised and scraped and with an even more pronounced shuffle, but emerging itself ought to be beyond him.

Still, Bridges is such a compelling actor, and Chase such an intriguing character, that you’ll likely join me in suspending your disbelief and willing him on to fight another day.

The Old Man streams on Disney+ from July 13.

Email the author at [email protected] , or follow him on Facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on Twitter @karlkwin

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Old Man Movie

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Stephen Lang, Lucky McKee, Marc Senter, Patch Darragh, Joel Veach, Liana Wright-Mark

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Friday, October 14, 2022 Limited

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When a lost hiker stumbles upon an erratic old man living in the woods, he could never have imagined the nightmare that awaits.

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A look at the Old Man behind-the-scenes crew and production team. The film's director Lucky McKee last directed Blood Money and All Cheerleaders Die .

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Old Man Release Date: When was the film released?

Old Man was a Limited release in 2022 on Friday, October 14, 2022 . There were 19 other movies released on the same date, including Halloween Ends , Game of Love and All Quiet on the Western Front . As a Limited release, Old Man will only be shown in select movie theaters across major markets. Please check Fandango and Atom Tickets to see if the film is playing in your area.

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The Old Man

A retired CIA agent is hunted by both the agency he once worked for and his own nightmares, when an unknown man suddenly visits him after nearly three decades. A retired CIA agent is hunted by both the agency he once worked for and his own nightmares, when an unknown man suddenly visits him after nearly three decades. A retired CIA agent is hunted by both the agency he once worked for and his own nightmares, when an unknown man suddenly visits him after nearly three decades.

Robert Levine
Jonathan E. Steinberg
Jeff Bridges
John Lithgow
E.J. Bonilla
554 User reviews
16 Critic reviews
5 wins & 14 nominations total

Episodes 15

Harold Harper

Raymond Waters

Young Dan Chase

Angela Adams

Young Faraz Hamzad

Julian Carson

Belour Daadfar …

Zoe McDonald

Abbey Chase

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Trivia Production was halted in March 2020 due to governmental restrictions. During that time, Jeff Bridges was diagnosed then treated for non-Hodgkins lymphoma. After he recuperated, the series went back into production. Bridges referred to the return as going back after a "long weekend" on a podcast in July 2022.
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‘The Old Man’: Jeff Bridges Shows True Grit as an Ex-CIA Agent on the Run

By Alan Sepinwall

Alan Sepinwall

The title of FX’s The Old Man doesn’t really tell you what kind of show it is. It could be a wacky multicamera sitcom about an ill-behaving senior citizen who gets kicked out of his retirement home and has to move in with his hipster grandson. It could be a whimsical dramedy about a retiree figuring out how to fill his days. Or it could be what it actually is: a thriller starring Jeff Bridges as a renegade former CIA operative who has to kill a lot of people when the fugitive identity he’s lived under for decades is discovered. Even the show’s poster image is relatively nondescript, with Bridges’ giant head floating behind the concerned body of co-star John Lithgow as his former handler. It tells you that The Old Man stars two revered, award-winning actors, and not much else.

But even if FX had opted to change the title from that of the Thomas Perry novel on which the show is based — maybe to The Dude Abides Murder ? — The Old Man would still feel somewhat generic. It offers exactly what the poster promises, in two excellent performances from Bridges and Lithgow (plus strong supporting ones from Amy Brenneman, Alia Shawkat, and Gbenga Akinnagbe), and offers a bonus in some gripping close-quarters combat sequences. But the story itself feels like an afterthought, and the energy level tends to droop whenever Bridges is not getting his homicide on.

Bridges plays Dan Chase, who once upon a time was a hotshot agent working in Afghanistan in the Eighties. Then he betrayed both his chief asset and the Agency and disappeared, building a happy and lucrative life, alongside a wife and daughter, under an assumed name. When the series begins, he is a widower whose only remaining family appears to be his two Rottweilers, who seem adorably docile until their master’s life is threatened, at which point they become his cold-blooded, highly-skilled bodyguards. The dogs come in handy, as does Chase’s own rusty but formidable aptitude for violence, when the government catches up to him and dispatches an assassin to his lovely suburban home. Soon, he’s on the run from ex-colleague Harold Harper (Lithgow), now an assistant FBI director, and Harper’s protégé Angela Adams (Shawkat). He poses as the guest-house tenant of lonely divorcée Zoe McDonald (Brenneman) while trying to evade the deadly Julian Carson (Akinnagbe), whom Harper engages on the side because he is better off with his old colleague dead rather than captured.

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This is a perfectly fine thriller setup. And the pragmatic, utterly ruthless Chase is a good showcase role for Bridges at the more taciturn end of his late-career range. (Think Hell or High Water more than True Grit .) The first two episodes are directed by Jon Watts, and the next two by Greg Yaitanes ( Banshee , Quarry ), and all are periodically elevated by bursts of violent combat that are remarkably staged and shot. Watts’ Spider-Man movies with Tom Holland do not feature memorable action, even by the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s oddly lax standards in this area. But those set pieces tend to be huge in scale with lots of special effects, where these work precisely because of how intimate they are. Rather than battling robotic drones atop London Bridge or the Green Goblin on Liberty Island, Dan Chase is often wrestling on kitchen floors with hitmen in dark clothing, and Watts and Yaitanes both do impressive work making the septuagenarian, cancer-surviving Bridges seem like the man who would of course win each of these fights(*).

(*) In general, it’s a great-looking show, with vivid colors and beautiful compositions.

It’s when the knives and dog fangs aren’t flying that The Old Man starts to show the age of its component parts. As adapted from Perry’s book by Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine, the plot feels warmed-over, the twists — particularly the one the show clearly thinks will drop audience members’ jaws — telegraphed well in advance, the characters brought to life more by those fine actors than by the material they’re given. And the flashbacks to Chase’s earlier years in Afghanistan are extremely nap-inducing, despite featuring a good actor in Bill Heck ( The Ballad of Buster Scruggs ) as the young Chase.

The caliber of the performers and performances is better able to elevate the material in the present day, particularly in scenes pairing Bridges and Brenneman. Their relationship starts out as something of a rehash of her dynamic with Robert De Niro in Heat , where she’s drawn to a charismatic stranger without realizing he’s a wanted man. But the actors’ chemistry is strong, and as the season moves along and Zoe begins to understand more about the situation she is trapped in, her role in things becomes more compelling than the cat-and-mouse games with Harper, or the ongoing threat of Carson.

Anytime you put this many great actors in one show, shoot it this well, and feature action this strong, you’re going to have something interesting. But just as Harold Harper still doesn’t quite understand why his old friend threw his whole career away to go rogue, it’s not hard to look at all the talent assembled for The Old Man and wish that the show lived up to its full potential.

The Old Man premieres June 16 on FX, with episodes releasing weekly and streaming the next day on Hulu. I’ve seen the first four of seven episodes.

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Old Man (2022) Movie Review with Ending Explained

“Old Man,” directed by Lucky McKee , is a film that delves into the depths of isolation and the human condition. The movie introduces us to a rugged, solitary figure played by Stephen Lang , whose performance is nothing short of magnetic. Lang’s character, an old man living in seclusion in a cabin in the woods, is confronted by a young hiker, Joe, portrayed by Marc Senter . What unfolds is a tense and unpredictable interaction that challenges the viewer’s perceptions of right and wrong.

The film opens with a powerful close-up of the old man, immediately setting the tone for a story that is intimate and intense. The cinematography is commendable, capturing the essence of the remote setting and the internal turmoil of the characters. The dialogue, however, has received mixed reviews, with some critics pointing out its lack of authenticity for the characters’ backgrounds.

As the plot progresses, “Old Man” transitions from a potential allegory to a full-fledged psychological thriller. The power dynamics between the old man and the hiker shift in a predictable yet skillfully executed manner. McKee’s direction ensures that the tension is palpable, and the audience is kept on edge throughout the film.

Critics have praised the staging and the mise-en-scène, noting that the confined space of the cabin adds to the claustrophobic atmosphere of the film. The story, while criticized for its predictability, does provide enough twists and turns to keep the audience engaged. The film’s climax is particularly noteworthy, delivering a satisfying conclusion to the harrowing journey of its characters.

Ending Explained (Spoiler Alert!)

The story unfolds in a secluded cabin in the woods, where an unnamed old man, played by Stephen Lang, lives in solitude. His routine is disrupted when a hiker named Joe, portrayed by Marc Senter, arrives at his door, claiming to be lost. The old man, suspicious and unwelcoming, confronts the stranger with a shotgun, questioning his intentions. Despite a hostile start, the two engage in conversation, revealing details about their lives.

As the plot progresses, the film takes viewers on a psychological roller coaster. The old man’s cabin becomes a stage for a tense and unsettling interaction between the two characters. The dialogue, laden with hints and innuendos, suggests that there is more to the old man’s story than meets the eye. The tension escalates as the narrative peels back layers, revealing the old man’s troubled past and his struggle with guilt over actions that continue to haunt him.

The ending of “Old Man” is particularly thought-provoking. It is revealed that Joe is not just a hiker but a younger version of the old man, embodying his past and the memories he cannot escape. The character of Rascal, initially believed to be the old man’s dog, turns out to be a personification of his darkest fears and regrets. The film concludes with the realization that the old man is trapped in a mental prison of his own making, a cabin that symbolizes his inability to come to terms with his past.

The movie’s conclusion is open to interpretation, with some suggesting that the old man’s visions of his wife and the mysterious “Purple Lake” are metaphors for his unresolved emotions and the weight of his guilt. The box, which plays a significant role in the film’s climax, is thought to signify the old man’s memories and the burden they represent.

“Old Man” challenges viewers to consider the power of denial and the ways in which we cope with our inner demons. It is a film that stays with you long after the credits roll, inviting you to reflect on the complexities of the human condition and the paths we take to find redemption or succumb to our own created hells.

In essence, “Old Man” is not just a movie; it’s a mirror into the soul, a haunting reminder of the battles we fight within ourselves. It’s a cinematic experience that asks the audience to question reality, confront the uncomfortable, and acknowledge the ghosts of our past that shape our present and future.

In the Nutshell

“Old Man” is a thought-provoking piece that explores themes of solitude, survival, and morality. While it may not be perfect, the performances, particularly by Lang, and the direction by McKee make it a film worth watching for those who appreciate a slow-burn thriller with psychological depth. [4 out of 5].

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Jeff bridges in fx’s ‘the old man’: tv review.

Bridges plays a former intelligence operative forced out of hiding when a government agent (John Lithgow) pursues him in a series adaptation of Thomas Perry's novel.

By Daniel Fienberg

Daniel Fienberg

Chief Television Critic

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Jeff Bridges as Dan Chase in THE OLD MAN.

Dan Chase, the protagonist of FX’s new drama The Old Man , is on the run. He’s being chased — see what they did there? — by several agencies of the American government, at least one deadly contractor and international adversaries. He’s a clever man, but his primary antagonist is time — a past catching up to him and a future becoming more finite.

It’s a part made for Jeff Bridges , one of those actors who was born for and into Hollywood stardom and who has grown gracefully from golden boy to sage septuagenarian on movie screens nationwide. As if the star’s gravitas weren’t enough, it’s almost impossible to watch The Old Man without thinking about the show’s delays for both the COVID pandemic and Bridges’ cancer — without considering time.

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The Old Man Review: Jeff Bridges Thriller Has No Trouble Keeping Up With Younger Dramas

The FX spy series has the energy of a show half its age

Jeff Bridges, The Old Man

There's a moment about halfway through the series premiere of The Old Man where Harold Harper ( John Lithgow ) is sitting with his grandson, building a castle out of blocks. We don't know anything about Harper yet, but he lives in quite the estate and comes across as thoughtful and articulate. "Space is the breath of art," he says, quoting Frank Lloyd Wright in an attempt to convey some lesson to his grandson. While the grandson might be too young to understand, The Old Man itself could be said to embody the philosophy of that quote. As the series unfolds, it leaves a lot of space for the characters, action, and impactful moments to breathe, creating a slow burn that's often very effective.

The premiere episode, airing June 16 on FX and streaming the next day on Hulu, is one of the more immediately compelling debuts of 2022. Jeff Bridges plays Dan Chase, an ex-CIA operative with a mysterious past who, after years in hiding, finds himself confronting whatever mess he made in his previous life. Assassins start to come for him in the middle of the night. He finds trackers hidden under his car. He picks up and moves, again and again, only to find that his old foes (perhaps once friends?) are pretty good at tracking him down. The premiere is beautifully paced, only giving out plot and character details in small doses, allowing the viewer to feel unsettled about what's happening and uncertain about which characters to trust.

The Old Man

Stellar lead performances
Action scenes that respect clarity and vision
Throwback vibe to the great paranoid thrillers of the '70s
Flashback scenes stall the action
Characters too often explain exactly what's happening

The tense feeling that permeates the premiere is something the show largely manages to hold on to as the lengthy episodes (three of the four episodes sent to critics clock in at over an hour) roll on. The Old Man does a good job at spreading out its various twists and turns, ratcheting up the tension when needed. What really makes the show work, though, is the way it executes its non-action scenes. Sure, the thriller stuff is the best part of the show, as Bridges tries to evade his captors in violent sequences shot with a precision, clarity, and style that's rare in TV these days. But the show is also incredibly poignant in its quieter moments, musing on ideas of identity, morality, and aging.

Specifically, The Old Man is compelling as a story about the stories we tell ourselves, and how easy it is to see ourselves as the heroes while others might not share that view. There's an uneasy feeling throughout the first few episodes because the show never quite spells out if Dan or Harold or anyone else involved here is a "bad" guy or a "good" guy. Rather, everyone lives in this murky in-between, and that makes for compelling character drama. Dan is forced to confront the consequences of his actions not only with the grown daughter he's trying to keep safe, but also the people he happens upon while on the run, like an Airbnb host named Zoe ( Amy Brenneman ) whom he becomes intimate with, drawing her into a journey she never imagined for herself.

The show can't totally keep the momentum of the premiere going. Flashbacks, which comprise about a quarter of each episode, are perhaps necessary for our understanding of the characters, as they tell us about Dan's mission in Afghanistan and what he did to get the CIA and an Afghan warlord named Faraz Hamzad working to find him again. But they too often slow down the action and feel much more sluggish than the lived-in world of the current timeline, where Bridges, Brenneman, and Lithgow bring a real gravitas to the political drama. Still, The Old Man is thrilling more often than not, and it's anchored by tremendous lead performances that make it a worthwhile watch for anyone who needs a true adult political thriller in their life.

Premieres: Thursday, June 16 at 10/9c on FX, streaming the next day on Hulu Who's in it: Jeff Bridges, John Lithgow, Amy Brenneman, Alia Shawkat Who's behind it: Creators Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine ( Black Sails ) For fans of: The Americans, Homeland, The Parallax View How many episodes we watched: 4 of 7

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Kevin Costner Hasn't Earned My Patience For Horizon: An American Saga

8 reasons reviews for kevin costner's new western are so bad, kevin costner's horizon box office opening eyeing no. 3 spot (but only a fraction of $100m budget).

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 is a film that explores the lives of various characters in the American West during the period before, during, and after the Civil War.
The film also delves into the perspectives of Indigenous people, such as the Apache tribe, who are fighting to defend their land from the encroaching settlers.
The film does not provide much in the way of resolution for any of its stories, but it emphasizes the price of freedom and the blood, sweat, and tears of the thousands of settlers who risked everything for the prospect of something better.

Kevin Costner's epic traditional Western series kicked off with Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 , and as opposed to wrapping up any of its sprawling story, its ending led right into Chapter 2 in August 2024. Driven by a talented and star-studded cast of characters headlined by Costner himself , the four planned movies of Horizon: An American Saga will explore the lives of multiple generations of settlers and Indigenous people as they struggle to carve out lives in the American West before, during, and after the Civil War. Chapter 1 introduced most of the major players and locations.

Kevin Costner provided some insight on the ending of Chapter 1 , and reinforced the notion that the saga will unfold steadily over the course of all four movies. As a result, most of the lengthy runtime of Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 is spent introducing the most important characters and story lines that will develop in the series. While most of the major stories are treated as separate journeys, many of the threads of what will eventually cause the stories to intersect can be found in Chapter 1 .

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 Ends With Footage From Chapter 2

One movie leads right into the next.

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 doesn't provide much in the way of wrap-up, but instead dives right into a montage a few minutes long that includes footage from Chapter 2 . Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 were shot back-to-back, and with Chapter 2 set to release just a few weeks after Chapter 1 debuts, the movie closes with a massive tease of what's to come. Several new characters are introduced in the footage, so it seems the setup isn't quite done yet.

Kevin Costner reportedly invested as much as $38 million of his own money of the $100 million required to produce the first two chapters of Horizon: An American Saga .

Interestingly, Chapter 3 has already started filming despite the box office haul from the first two chapters being completely unsettled. The box office prospects for Chapter 1 seem dismal, and if an audience isn't built on the first part, Chapter 2 seems just as likely to fail. With millions of Costner's own money already sunk into the production of the first two chapters, it remains to be seen if the final two chapters of the story can even be completed, which likely explains Costner's insistence on teasing Chapter 2 at the end of Chapter 1 .

What is Horizon?

A safe and prosperous destination in the west.

Flier for Horizon in Horizon: An American Saga

The meaning of Horizon was more fully explored in Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 after being hinted at in the trailers. A flier continues to appear throughout the movie, in the hands of various (currently) disconnected characters, implying that knowledge of the town described in it is common. The flier tempts settlers with promises of a town in which they can be prosperous, and more importantly, they can live safely . If there is one point that Chapter 1 manages to make, it's that American settlers on the frontier are anything but safe.

The flier being referenced or held by characters across multiple stories indicates that Horizon may be the major point at which the stories intersect . Whether they'll find what they're looking for is another question entirely, as the end of the movie reveals that the fliers are being printed back in the east by a man named Pickering (Giovanni Ribisi). It could be that the real Horizon is in fact the location being surveyed at the very beginning of Chapter 1 , and therefore, there is no Horizon for the characters to find.

What Happened to Frances and Elizabeth Kittredge

They have already dealt with terror and loss.

Sienna Miller holds a tea cup while contemplating in Horizon An American Saga Chapter 1

While it's difficult to designate any character as the "main" character in a saga and a cast this expansive, Sienna Miller's Frances Kittredge and her daughter Elizabeth (Georgia MacPhail) come awful close given their prevalence in the story that gets some of, if not the most screen time. After losing her husband, son, and most of their neighbors to a raid on their settlement, the two surviving Kittredges find their way to Camp Gallant and fall under the protection of Lt. Trent Gephardt (Sam Worthington) and Colonel Houghton (Danny Huston).

The runtime and release schedule for Kevin Costner's epic Western passion project requires patience from fans, but he doesn't necessarily deserve it.

Frances sparks a romance with the chivalrous Lt. Gephardt while Elizabeth becomes somewhat of a camp mascot, acting as a bright spot for the U.S. Army soldiers at the camp. After the tragedy and loss that the two experienced, their life at the camp becomes one of the more positive stories in Chapter 1 . However, when many of the young soldiers are called back east to fight in the ongoing Civil War, the safety of the camp becomes somewhat less certain. The movie ends with them still safe in the camp, but it seems as though that may be short-lived.

Why The Sykes Family Wants Ellen

Vengeance fuels the family.

Jena Malone's Ellen Harvey (a.k.a. Lucy) bursts into the narrative by shooting an unnamed man in his bed before riding away with her infant son , leaving him badly wounded but alive. Her story jumps forward at least a couple of years, as she now lives with a salesman (Michael Angarano) at what appears to be a trading outpost in the territories, with the insolent prostitute Marigold (Abbey Lee) under her roof. She and her partner are lured to what they think is a sale, only to be ambushed by the sons of the man she shot, Caleb and Junior Sykes.

The two men seek vengeance for the attempted murder of their father James Sykes , and although her specific motivation isn't revealed, it's clear that he had wronged her well before she shot him. Caleb is sent to fetch her son for further vengeance, where he unfortunately (for him) runs into Costner's Hayes Ellison, who kills him in a gunfight. That turns the Sykes' attention towards finding Ellison, and the movie ends with Ellen in their custody and Junior and his companions on the trail of Ellison.

Why Marigold Left Hayes

She abandons hayes and sam.

Ellison ran into Caleb Sykes on his way to visit Marigold, who was at Ellen's house. As a result of the gunfight, he takes Marigold and Ellen's son Sam away from the outpost and into the wilderness to escape the vengeance of the Sykes family. Over time he develops into a pseudo-father and husband, even though Marigold still sleeps with other men. At one outpost that they hide from the Sykes family in, one man offers/threatens to take her away with him when he leaves , but only gives her until the next day to decide what to do.

(Kevin-Costner-as-John-Dutton)-from-Yellowstone-1

Kevin Costner's passion project Horizon: An American Saga is supposed to be released in four parts, but the first entry hasn't been well-received.

Marigold takes him up on his offer, leaving Sam in the care of a Chinese family that had been friendly to him earlier, and leaves Hayes with nothing more than a note. Marigold seems to be simply chasing the idea of greater prospects for herself , and has no problem abandoning Sam and Hayes to do it. It remains to be seen if she reappears in Hayes' story or the overarching narrative at all, but if her screen time in Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 is any indication, it seems likely that she will.

Why Pionsenay Left His Tribe

The young warrior sought a different path.

Pionsenay leads a raid party in Horizon: An American Saga

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 does attempt to provide the perspective of the Indigenous people who live and hunt on the very land that the American settlers are attempting to claim for themselves. Owen Crow Shoe's young warrior Pionsenay--who executed the raid at the beginning of the movie--provides a more militant perspective when he argues that his tribe of Apache (and Indigenous people everywhere) should defend their lands , as they will be forced to war with other tribes whose territory they will be forced to hunt if they allow themselves to be pushed out.

He is at odds with Gregory Cruz's Tuayeseh, an elder of Pionsenay's Apache tribe who argues that there is room for both, especially as their tribe is capable of surviving and thriving in the higher, more mountainous areas. This leads to Pionsenay taking like-thinking warriors with him and leaving the larger tribe to go continue to make war on the settlers . Pionsenay will almost certainly be responsible for run-ins with other characters from the saga, and the trailers indicate that Matthew Van Weyden's wagon train might be next.

Where Van Weyden Is Leading The Wagon Train

He deals with unprepared settlers, the indigenous, and the west itself.

Luke Wilson's Matthew Van Weyden was elected to lead a wagon train on the famous Sante Fe Trail, and Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 provides a glimpse of some of the more trivial problems that come with the job . It's worth noting that Will Patton and Isabelle Fuhrman play Owen and Diamond Kittredge, and are related to Frances and Elizabeth (Owen is Frances' father-in-law). They come into conflict with Ella Hunt and Tom Payne's British settlers who are woefully out of their depth and ignorant of wagon etiquette.

The Sante Fe Trail was a real wagon train trail that connected Franklin, Missouri to Sante Fe, New Mexico.

Van Weyden is attempting to navigate the wagon train to a safe area where they can settle in the American Southwest. Unfortunately, Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 shows that the wagon train already has Indigenous scouts watching them , and the trailers and teaser footage reveal that not all the settlers that are part of the train will survive the journey. Van Weyden is knowledgeable and able to remain calm in the face of adversity, but he hasn't faced the most dangerous elements of the journey yet.

Why The Raid Survivors Are Hunting Indigenous People

Vengeance and profit drive their journey.

The massacre at the beginning of Horizon: An American Saga

Several of the survivors of the raid from the beginning of Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 join up with some soldiers of fortune to form a posse in search of vengeance for the death of their family and friends. They are rebuffed by Lt. Gephardt upon their departure from Fort Gallant, as he knows that the soldiers of fortune will seek scalps of any Indigenous people (including Indigenous Mexican people) for profit, and are not actually driven by vengeance against one specific tribe , except for Etienne Kellici's young man, Russell Ganz.

Their quest leads them to intimidate an Indigenous trader at a general store before attacking and scalping a group of innocent Indigenous women and children as soon as they are certain that the warriors are far enough away. Russell is hesitant to participate in any of it , despite the urging of his comrades. Their vicious attack will certainly have repercussions moving forward, perhaps for the remaining settlers and soldiers at Camp Gallant, which is in the region.

The Real Meaning of Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

Hope for a better life inevitably breeds conflict.

Kevin Costner Wearing a Cowboy Hat and a Kerchief in Horizon: An American Saga

All the American settlers whose journeys are chronicled in Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 are driven at first by hope for a better life. However, the hope that fuels their march westward breeds conflict with the Indigenous people whose land they are attempting to claim, and with each other. The price of the freedom that people on both sides of the struggle for the American West in the period before, during, and after the Civil War is steep, and results in death and despair for all.

Horizon: An American Saga is a return to the traditional Western themes of yesteryear.

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 doesn't provide much in the way of resolution for any of its stories, but it does make one thing clear: creating the America of today was no easy feat . It required the blood, sweat, and tears of thousands of intrepid settlers who were willing to risk everything for the prospect of something better. It's a return to the traditional Western themes of yesteryear, and it will be explored in much more depth across the next nine hours of Horizon: An American Saga , if it does in fact wind up produced.

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 is a Western film directed by Kevin Costner, and sees him in the starring role. The film explores multiple generations surrounding the expansion of the American West before and after the Civil War. Horizon is the first in a series of four films, all of which were greenlit by Warner Bros. Pictures.

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Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 Ending Explained
Summary. Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 is a film that explores the lives of various characters in the American West during the period before, during, and after the Civil War. The film also delves into the perspectives of Indigenous people, such as the Apache tribe, who are fighting to defend their land from the encroaching settlers.

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