By sheer coincidence, I watched “The Unholy Trinity” in the midst of binging on the 1950s and ’60s B-Westerns starring Audie Murphy, while preparing an article keyed to the centennial of the late actor and World War II hero. And I must say I was pleasantly surprised, and frequently delighted, to see how much filmmaker Richard Gray has captured the spirit and excitement of those unpretentious productions in his own sagebrush saga.
Indeed, devoted fans of the Murphy movies — especially the more, ahem, mature viewers — likely will be willing to overlook some of the messy violence and salty language to relish this trip in the wayback machine. But it’s not just a wallow in nostalgia: It also stands on its own merits as a satisfying entertainment that could easily find a receptive audience among folks who’ve never seen, or even heard of, such golden oldies as “Seven Ways from Sundown” or “Gunfight at Comanche Creek.”
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Brandon Lessard is capable and convincing as the sort of character Murphy often played, a young man who reluctantly turns to gunplay so he can deliver rough justice and/or settle overdue accounts. The big difference here is, while Murphy only rarely appeared opposite superstars on the order of James Stewart (in “Night Passage”) or Burt Lancaster (John Huston’s “The Unforgiven”), Lessard shares the screen with two imposing icons, Pierce Brosnan and Samuel L. Jackson. That he mostly holds his own with those heavyweights is a credit to his talent and a boon to the movie.
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Lessard plays Henry Broadway, a naïve and untested fellow whose life take a dramatic pivot in the 1870s when he has a fleeting reunion with Isaac (Tim Daly), his estranged outlaw father, just minutes before the older man is the guest of honor at a necktie party. Before he hangs, Isaac demands that his son find and kill the varmint he claims framed him for a crime he didn’t commit. That’s his story, at least, though he doesn’t stick around very long to stand by it.
So Henry takes a bumpy stagecoach ride to the Montana town of Trinity, where he intends to kill the local sheriff, supposedly the man whose false witness sent dear old dad to the gallows. Shortly after he arrives, however, he learns the lawman is very seriously deceased. The new sheriff, forthright Irish immigrant Gideon Dove (Brosnan), breaks the bad news to Henry, and warns him not to tell any of the trigger-happy hotheads in Trinity that he’s the son of his father.
Too late: An aggressively friendly and grandiloquent ex-slave named St. Christopher (Jackson) already knows about Henry’s lineage. Trouble is, the elder Broadway managed to cheat St. Christopher out of his share of the plunder. Henry claims he has no idea where his father hid their ill-gotten gain of gold bars. But St. Christopher is not a man who accepts no as an answer, or even an option. And he’s certain the loot is stashed somewhere in or around Trinity.
Meanwhile, Dove must deal with some of the aforementioned hotheads as he attempts to distract them from their hunt for Running Cub (Q’orianka Kilcher), a young Blackfoot woman they think is responsible for the death of the town’s previous sheriff. The good news: Dove knows exactly where she is — encamped in a remote location not far from town, biding her time until she can avenge the death of her father. He takes a big risk by protecting her because, hey, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. The bad news: Dove can’t convince Running Cub to vamoose because — well, a woman’s got to do what a woman’s got to do as well.
“The Unholy Trinity” is not Richard Gray’s first rodeo. His previous Western, “Murder at Yellowstone City” (2022), was an imaginative commingling of horse opera and murder mystery. Gray takes a rather more conventional approach here to the genre tropes in Lee Zachariah’s sturdy screenplay, but provides more than enough rapid-fire shootouts, impressive stunt choreography, shifting allegiances and moderately clever plot twists to keep things interesting. He also adds a subtle sprinkling of religious symbolism to the mix — not just in the cheeky title — and allows the film’s two most important female characters, Running Cub and Dove’s supportive wife Sarah (a well-cast Veronica Ferres), to demonstrate they are straight shooters, not distressed damsels, when the bullets fly.
And of course, there are the contributions by Brosnan and Jackson, two old pros who neatly balance each other with their different but equally appropriate approaches to the material. Brosnan effectively plays Dove as scrupulously reserved but cagey and authoritative, occasionally appearing melancholy if not downright sad when his worst expectations are fulfilled — “Evil’s wearing all kinds of things these days!” — but never leaving any doubt that if anyone shoots first, he’ll shoot last.
In sharp contrast, Jackson swings for the fences with a bodaciously swaggering performance that indicates St. Christopher always views himself as the smartest guy in the room, even while he’s ingratiating himself to a saloon full of frontier rednecks he hopes to exploit as useful idiots. Yes, he feasts on the scenery. (Even the striking Montana exteriors, beautifully photographed by Thomas Scott Stanton, look like they bear his toothmarks.) No, it’s not out of place. “I’m not the devil, son,” St. Christopher tells Henry. “I’m just a sinner.” The beauty is, Jackson leaves you wondering if he’s telling only half the truth.