One of the finest tension-escalating tropes in a “retired stubbly badass comes back from the dead” story is when they pull the old war chest out from under the floor and stoically look upon their favorite tools of death.
This is when you know the body count is about to put on a cute little Patagonia overcoat and start climbing.
McConaughey did it in True Detective when he pulled an AK and a bottle of Jameson from his box of memories. John Wick kept his in a lockbox under the floor. Nick Cage? One can envision the impending violent crescendos swelling out of a man who has a history full of guns and mustaches.
And when you’ve dipped into the old premise of “murderous man out for revenge”, you’ve got some difficult choices to make as a composer. Some films go with the brooding, ambient soundtrack that colors our antihero with a sense that every step forward is another light going out in their soul. Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto’s score for The Revenant comes to mind. Although not a linear revenge story, Drive with Ryan Gosling goes the same route (scored by Cliff Martinez).
Then there’s the alternative direction: majestic, driving, bombastic. The original John Wick blends this beautifully with “Think” by Kaleida diving into pounding techno (performed by Le Castle Vania). Django Unchained is another, putting Rick Ross overtop cypress trees and cotton fields.
On pure speculation, it’s hard to know which path Andrew Morgan Smith has built to support the horse hooves of The Old Way. Smith was classically trained at the University of Louisiana Lafayette and has composed more than 90 projects ranging from horror to Lifetime Christmas flicks. If the trailer is any indication, it might follow the path of lively Western grit, like Hell or High Water. The inciting incident might be a murder, but the movie is driven by the feel-good outlaw chemistry of a couple of eccentric cowboys experiencing the comraderie of the open road. In The Old Way, it’s Nicolas Cage schooling his daughter with a shotgun.
Composer Andrew Morgan Smith
The Old Way or “The Nick Cage Western movie” has all the components of an ancient formula: murdered wife, a daughter to mentor, and the “old cowboy who knows the baddies really messed up this time” played by Nick Searcy. None of this implies the movie will be anything but completely entertaining.
Great cast. A score anchored by Andrew Morgan Smith. Nicolas Cage with a droopy Montana rancher’s mustache. It’s got all the chemistry of a good night in a theater seat.
The Old Way releases on January 6, 2023. Check out a previous deep-dive interview on the art of composing with Andrew Morgan Smith here.
