2.5 out of 5

Let’s consider the contentiousness between celebrity parents & their offspring: the Voigt/Jolie/Pitt’s; the O’Neal’s; the Barrymore’s…

The public only receives as much information that’s dished; often, that doesn’t include the forgiveness intrinsic to maintaining a healthy, life-long relationship with one’s family. That’s usually something us plebs experience ourselves, in time.

Great, then, for actor Kiefer Sutherland actually wanting to work with his late father & icon Donald. Kiefer hasn’t been featured on-screen so much since the height of COVID, what with his side-gig as a country musician. I saw him live in 2019 and, while I can’t remember his music, I think all of us in attendance were awed to see Jack Bauer/David the Daywalker in the flesh.

Where their filmography choices differ, father & son’s similar acting disciplines, and uncanny biology, can be felt in their shared scenes for the 2015 western Forsaken.

Forsaken has noble intentions – no doubt about that. It has a linear, easy-to-follow man-versus-himself redemption story, devoid of texture that doesn’t serve the plot. It has wonderfully verbose dialogue, recited melodramatically by its cavalcade of character actors (Demi Moore; Michael Wincott). It has a subversive epilogue, swapping a lovesick reunion for a tearful family goodbye. There really isn’t anything thematically wrong with it.

But it’s slow. Damn slow! Characterizations & script points are blander than superior genre examples, like Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven (Richard Harris’ English Bob vs. Wincott’s Gentleman Dave) and Ed Harris’ Appaloosa (the love triangle). Brian Cox as the villain is Brian Cox as the villain, doing his billowy, profane Brian Cox thing – though credit goes to director Jon Cassar for convincing the Shakespearean-trained thespian to die next to a big pile of horse shit. And it’s always a bit rocking to see close-ups of gory, chunky gibs in the last ten minutes when the previous eighty lacked such morbid details.

Although only an hour-and-a-half, Forsaken feels twice as long when its quiet moments insist on themselves, like endless wood-cutting, and rumours from the church social club. If there were fewer of those hyperrealistic pauses – so common in modern prestige television – perhaps Kiefer & Donald’s understated work here would have serviced the picture as a whole, as opposed to being ‘one effective element’ of a decidedly average film.

If you want to see peak cinematic familial synchronicity, Forsaken is a low-calorie – if forgettable – clone.