The Unholy Trinity, 2025.
Directed by Richard Gray.
Starring Pierce Brosnan, Samuel L. Jackson, Brandon Lessard, Veronica Ferres, Gianni Capaldi, Q’orianka Kilcher, Tim Daly, Ethan Peck, Katrina Bowden, David Arquette, Anthony J. Sharpe, Beau Linnell, Isabella Ruby, Eadie Gray, Stephanie Hernandez, Dylan Brosnan, Paris Brosnan, Stu Brumbaugh, Tina Buckingham, Nick Farnell, Chuck Mathews, Scott McCauley and Tim Montana.
SYNOPSIS:
Buried secrets of an 1870s Montana town spark violence when a young man returns to reclaim his legacy and is caught between a sheriff determined to maintain order and a mysterious stranger hell-bent on destroying it.
With a title like The Unholy Trinity, one might be led to believe that director Richard Gray (and screenwriter Lee Zachariah) would have a significant degree of characterization of the individuals within that triangle. Instead, it more or less coasts on nabbing some recognizable faces in Pierce Brosnan and Samuel L. Jackson to appear in it, while serving as a muddled, bland search for gold, which is really a search for a particular home that is believed to have it buried under.
Young Henry Broadway’s (Brandon Lessard) father built the home. It also turns out that he has constructed numerous buildings within this small Montana town, making the search more difficult for Samuel L. Jackson’s St. Christopher, a man with a history of interaction with him, as evident from his casual smile while watching his execution. Moments before, Henry’s father proclaims his innocence and urges his son to enact vengeance by killing the sheriff who supposedly framed him. The wrinkle in that plan is that the sheriff is already dead, leaving Henry unsure of what to do next as he befriends the new sheriff, a soft-spoken and weary Gabriel Dove (Pierce Brosnan).
That’s a whole lot of convoluted storytelling for a film that’s about buried treasure, and that’s without getting into pasts revealed through exposition and other plot elements including Gabriel’s secret alliance with indigenous Running Cub (Q’orianka Kilcher), whom an angry mob led by Gideon (Gianni Capaldi) has accused of wrongdoing and wants to kill. This is also meant to be somewhat of a coming-of-age story for Henry, who stumbles into his first sexual encounter in a brothel and then wonders if God is punishing him for doing so when a shootout arises.
Speaking of that, The Unholy Trinity is a bit of a disjointed narrative mess that occasionally erupts into serviceable action, even if there is no reason to invest in any of this. It’s a boilerplate Western that only comes alive when Samuel L. Jackson is sayinb “screw it”, putting on an anachronistic, charismatic performance, seemingly aware that this material is generic and needlessly complicated. Pierce Brosnan also brings some class to the proceedings as a dignified sheriff trying to ward off trigger-finger heavy mobs and do right by those deserving.
Perhaps the most glaring fault is that Brendan Lessard is a blank slate as Henry, uninteresting and dragging everything down around him. Whether it’s his quest for vengeance or being placed into a predicament between St. Christopher and Gabriel regarding the gold, Henry is a boring character, difficult to muster up any enthusiasm for, and get behind. If anything, once more is revealed about St. Christopher, he’s the one worth rooting for, although it’s unclear if that’s actually what the filmmakers intended.
The Unholy Trinity is a cut above the usual cheap garbage that typically comes from this primarily straight-to-VOD genre nowadays, but that’s far from gold.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
