Mark Reviews Movies: OLD MAN

Old Man, RLJE Films

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | October 13, 2022

In a cabin deep in the forests of the Great Smoky Mountains lives an old man. He's quite alone, save for a dog that seems to have disappeared on him, and seems quite confused when he awakens from his sleep. Everything, which isn't much, is where it should be, but a noise or a voice has startled him from his slumber. That's how Old Man starts, with a thick air of mystery that's far more convincing than the mystery offered up by this admirably spare but disappointingly thin tale.

The Old Man, as he's only known, is played by Stephen Lang in a performance that's essentially a solo act, even though there are other characters and actors who come and go and appear in flashbacks or dreams or visions of dark desires. Those characters matter to one degree or another, but there's little denying that this is Lang's show.

Director Lucky McKee's camera seems intrinsically drawn to him, even when the limited action is occurring elsewhere in the cramped quarters of the cabin or when the focus of a story the Old Man is telling is on another participant. Those other characters—one in particular, who becomes the Old Man's partner in conversation for a good chunk of the story—speak about what brought them to this place, their lives, and hints of some secret things in their past. The discussion, though, almost regularly returns to Lang's character.

The performance is quite good, although it's one that has to grow on us. That's not the fault of Lang, who seems to understand a lot more about this guy's loneliness and its effects on his body, mind, and spirit than we can comprehend from the start. When he first awakens, for example, the Old Man's raspy voice cracks in the particular way of someone who hasn't used in some time.

Why would he need to? His only company for quite some time, in theory, has been an unseen dog. Dogs are fine companions but not exactly conversationalists, so calling out for the canine, which seems to have run off somewhere in the woods, almost seems like a good excuse for the Old Man to finally talk, if only to himself, to call the dog disloyal, and promise to cook and eat it if it ever returns.

For some, there will be plenty of questions of logic to this setup, which is initially calculated to such a degree that Lang feels like a tool for the script at first. Those questions, along with plenty of others about the very point of this story, only increase as Joel Veach's screenplay follows the Old Man in his dawdling and mumbling about the cabin, his introduction to an unexpected visitor, the back-and-forth between them, and the mounting tension that at least one of them might not be up to any good. The questions are essentially the point of the tale, which makes it a somewhat intriguing puzzle at the start, as get to know and receive plenty of confirmation about the miserable so-and-so of the title. The problem, unfortunately, is when the movie starts answering those questions.

For the most part, the story revolves around the lengthy conversation between the Old Man and Joe (Marc Senter), a stranger who knocks at the cabin door, announces that he has found himself lost in the woods, and asks for a little help to find his way back to whatever trail he was following. The Old Man responds by sticking a double-barreled shotgun in Joe's face.

He doesn't trust visitors, because this cabin is perfectly situated to ensure to that none will come to it, unless said stranger intends to do so. For all the Old Man knows, Joe could be some "psycho killer," but for all Joe knows, the Old Man could get away with harming him or worse out here in the middle of nowhere. After promising that they won't hurt each other, the Old Man tells a story about a traveling Bible salesman (Patch Darragh) who once knocked on his door, and it's reason for Joe to worry about his safety again. Then again, something on the stranger's face suggests the story might be familiar to him in some way.

For his part, Senter's performance shows an actor who knows he isn't the star here—nor should he even try to be. There's a humility and a meekness to his work that's fairly endearing, especially as a man who is frightened of the Old Man, is clearly disappointed in the life he had before finding the cabin, and, for all we know, might just be putting on some kind of act for the Old Man or his own benefit.

As the two men talk and try to figure out each other, the movie finds its rhythm and solidifies that atmosphere of constant uncertainty. Lang does a lot of that work for the filmmakers, until Old Man lets both him and character down with a dream-like third act that puts the entire story into a new but predictably obvious context. As it turns out, the point isn't in the character, the conversations, or the mood. It's in trying to cheat us out of those and into clear-cut, routine resolution.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products