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Never Grow Old - 3.5/4
A bad tempered independent Western full of ugliness and mean spirit that ends with one of the most simply written and beautifully played emotional exchanges I have ever seen. Don't confuse this with a revenge thriller, it has all of the key components but this is a morality tale all the way. A redemption film. The protagonist is a good but conflicted and put upon man who must overcome his reticence to come good in the end.
Emile Hirsch at his finest is unquestionably one of the best actors in the world, and here he is as good as I have ever seen him. He has John Cusack to play off, a John Cusack that in small films has become so much more than the awful leading man that somehow dominated the quirkier mainstream films of the 90's.
I like Cusack a lot in this. He has the look of an old school heel wrestler in the best way possible. I don't know what on earth they did to his face but his eyes look mental and his skin has the pallor of death.
He reins his acting in appropriately too, only showing mania in glimpses as his cohorts in the movie provide plenty of camp themselves.
I have to say I wasn't expecting a masterpiece but this came very close, the plot is typical Western fare in that a town has changed from good to bad and now it is about to descend into hell with the arrival of some even more heinous strangers. It's nothing new but it is expertly paced in the act progression. There isn't much fat on this, it is a lean and mean piece of film making where you can see that the money has been put in all of the right places proving yet again that practical special effects are always worth using in the right hands.
Great performances across the cast, excellent use of material and surroundings and quite possibly the first appropriate non-comedic use of a blunderbuss in film history.
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