I’ve said in many reviews of Westerns that I’m a huge fan of them. I’ve seen so many that I can’t keep count of so many I’ve seen. Westerns are one of my favorite genres of film. Unforgiven is one of my all-time favorite films, not just Westerns. The list goes on and on how much I love them. The Unholy Trinity is the latest that I’ve had a chance to watch, but it’s by far not anywhere near one of my favorites. As a matter of fact, it may be one of my least favorites of this genre. That’s always a sad case because of how much I love the genre, so. I’ll have many more chances to watch new ones that come out,  though.

This film starts in the Montana Territory in 1888, where Henry Broadway (Brenden Lassard) has his final contact with his father who is about to be hanged for a muder of two native Americans, that he didn’t commit.  Henry decides to go to the town of Trinity, where he intends to avenge his father’s wrongful death. Instead he gets involved with some Shady characters such as Saint Christopher  (Samuel L Jackson) Father Jacob (David Arquette) and a Sheriff, Gabriel Dove (Pierce Brosnan) who is trying to help him while hiding his father’s secret he went to the grave with.

This film has a crime aspect to it because of the gunfighter it’s filled with during this time in history. Director Richard Gray and Writer Lee Zachariah wanted to give the movie a realistic flavor of that era in history. In some respects, they do that. The script by Zachariah holds the film back. These two have worked together before on a previous western, but this one just felt like it was written and directed by amateurs. The dialogue was pretty dull, and the action and gunfights weren’t very good at all. Despite the fact this movie had two massive stars in it, it felt like the budget and lack of creativity held it back.  That’s too bad.

Westerns have a specific aesthetic to them, and this one fell back on many of the tropes of past Westerns. There isn’t anything new or creatively different than many others I’ve seen in the past. Even though there is a macguffin in the story that everybody is trying to find, it just causes issues in the story.The characters all get lost in this thing. Without actually seeing the mcguffin, it doesn’t feel like any of what is happening matters. The script says what it is, but it’s not something tangible. I didn’t really care about anything that was going on. And I didn’t care about the main character and his journey. In other words, this film might have been better handled. 

Samuel L. Jackson has played a lot of odd or eclectic types of characters. Characters in Django Unchained,  Black Snake Moan, and this one seem pretty similar to me. He’s playing this character in a mix of comedy and drama.  I feel at this time in his career he has started phoning in his performance.  Even though he had goofy hairdos and coat to try to get into character, I didn’t see the character I only saw him.  This is one of the least enjoyable roles of his that I had a chance to see. That’s sad to say because I love him as an actor.

Pierce Brosnan is another actor who has been in many films and television series. Similar to Jackson, he had a huge role in his career as James Bond. He was almost typecast as this character, but he’s scraped and clawed his way out of the hole. He’s done a bit of everything in his career ever since his five Bond films. Sometimes, though, he gets these roles in low-budget films, and it doesn’t feel like he should be in these roles. I feel he should be in big movies and television series, not low budget, badly written,and directed Westerns. Seraphim Falls was a similar type of film for him, except he’s the bad guy in that movie. 

The Unholy Trinity is an interesting title because it has multiple meanings. It deals with the town all of these events take place in. It refers to the three main characters in the movie. It’s a little too on the nose for my liking. These aren’t the issues with the film, though. The action scenes aren’t exciting, and the dialogue delivered seemed to be boring and repetitive.  I wasn’t that interested in the story that much. The macguffin held the story back and didn’t let it breathe as much as this story needed to. That’s a shame because I always want movies I watch to succeed, and it doesn’t from my perspective.

2 stars

Dan Skip Allen