Emile Hirsch is one of those actors who seems to have starred in more films than you remember. He’s also got a fairly chequered personal history, and all this at just 34 years of age. After featuring in The Girl Next Door and Lords of Dogtown Hirsch made his big break in Into the Wild, for which he received a raft of awards. He has gone on to work on the likes of Milk, Savages and The Autopsy of Jane Doe. He stars in Ivan Kavanagh’s new film Never Grow Old.
Patrick Tate (Emile Hirsch) is an undertaker in a small temperance town. He lives with his religious wife Audrey (Déborah François) and their two young children. Whilst the frontier community is hardly flourishing under the puritanical yoke of Preacher Pike (Danny Webb), it’s at least a safe place to live. That is until Dutch Albert (John Cusack) and his gang arrive. Debauchery, greed and death follow in their wake.
Never Grow Old is a cautionary tale about the consequences of choosing personal gain against your better judgement. Kavanagh’s film is beautifully shot, Piers McGrail’s cinematography Draws us into Pat’s dingy, desolate and dangerous world. The resident’s fear is palpable with death stalking in the shadows. The story itself is rather predictable and slightly derivative. However, this doesn’t prevent Never Grow Old being an entertaining and engrossing western.
New Grow Old is released on DVD by Altitude Film Entertainment on 23 September.
