Pierce Brosnan trades licence to kill for sheriff's badge in revenge tale
★★★
MA (15+), 93 minutes
A Western starring Pierce Brosnan and Samuel L. Jackson promises to be a decent enough time, at the very least. And that is exactly what this revenge tale, with a significant (though far from obvious) Australian component, delivers – a decent enough time.
Absolutely nothing in The Unholy Trinity comes as a surprise. Almost everything feels like something you've seen or heard before ('they kilt ma brother', says one chap-wearing villain seconds after the saloon has fallen silent upon the entry of his posse).
Even the name echoes the Terence Hill-Bud Spencer Trinity films from the 1970s. But while there are some flashes of wry humour dotted throughout – can a movie with Jackson ever not have at least a little twinkle in its eye? – this is mostly a straight-shooting exercise in genre.
Not that it doesn't try to surprise with its convoluted revenge plot sprinkled with dollops of Civil War, slavery, indigenous land rights and religion.
Henry Broadway (Brandon Lessard) arrives at the gallows just in time to hear his father proclaim he is innocent of the crime for which he's about to swing. The true villain, he insists, is the sheriff of a town called Trinity.
Duly entrusted with a mission of vengeance, Henry rides to Trinity and pulls a gun on the lawman in church. Trouble is, it's the wrong sheriff; the man who killed his Pa is dead. In his place is Gabriel Dove (Brosnan), whose message is one of peace (nominal determinism, much?). That said, he's not averse to using a rifle to enforce it.
There's a faction in the town convinced that the old sheriff was murdered by a Blackfoot woman (Q'orianka Kilcher) who lives out in the wilds, and they want to hunt her down. Dove is convinced she's innocent, and does all he can to protect her.
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