An old man wakes up. Alone, in an old, isolated mountain hut. He struggles to get out of bed, shuffles through his boring existence, which is the only thing in this run-down shack, calls for his dog, which apparently has escaped (again). Someone’s knocking at the door. In front of it is a younger Man who claims to have lost his way and found the hut to be a place of last hope asks for help. The old man is suspicious, looks at the young man, asks, examines, provokes, tests him, scares him.
von Christian Klosz
After a reconciling drink, the men engage in a conversation about life, love and suffering, which reveals ever clearer parallels between the two outwardly very different figures: one could almost think that the visitor was a younger version of the Old Man from a previous life.
This is the setting of Lucky McKee’s psychological thriller Old Man, starring Stephen Lang. What looks like a minimalist haunted house thriller at first glance quickly turns out to be an unusual and independent chamber play, which is largely supported by its dialogues and the (two) actors (besides Lang Marc Senter) – rather unusual for a genre film . The responsible US film distributor RLJE proves once again that they have a knack for interesting genre experiments and small-budget B-Movies.
“Old Man” would also work as a straight thriller. Screenwriter Joel Veach finally builds in a false bottom and an existential (meta) level, which dissolves the plot, which is confused towards the end. The complexity is manageable and feels mildly generic, but does only minimal harm to the end product, so that the film can be considered one of the more interesting direct-to-video releases of the last few months. Anyone who likes small, independently produced “termite art” away from the big Hollywood studios should give the “Old Man” a chance.
Evaluation
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 7 out of 10.
(71/100)
Since 29.6. available on DVD & Bluray, also available as purchase and rental VOD.
Bild: (c) Plaion Pictures
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2023-07-14 07:45:49
#Genre #Gems #Man #Film #Review
