The Unholy Trinity

Shootouts, Gold, and Samuel L. Jackson Doing Something Weird in a Saloon

The Unholy Trinity is a modern western where jealousy, buried gold, and the film rights to every shoot-’em-up cliché collide in dusty Montana. Pierce Brosnan plays Gabriel Dove, a sheriff with decent facial hair and unresolved Civil War flashbacks. Samuel L. Jackson shows up as St. Christopher, a charismatic outlaw who may or may not be improvising half his lines just to keep things interesting. And Brandon Lessard plays Henry Broadway, a young man on a revenge mission who looks like he’s never actually ridden a horse but definitely owns at least one bolo tie.

I haven’t seen it. But I’ve watched the trailer, skimmed critic reviews, and accidentally wandered into an online debate about whether it’s “a tribute to classic westerns” or “two hours of dusty people yelling at each other while sitting weirdly still.”

The plot revolves around some very 1800s things: revenge, betrayal, injustice, and buried Confederate gold — which, like most Confederate ideas, probably wasn’t that valuable to begin with. There’s also a wrongly accused woman, a lot of hats, and what I can only assume is a dramatic standoff in front of a church or possibly a general store that sells bullets by the scoop.

Critics say Jackson and Brosnan “keep the film afloat,” which is film critic code for “the plot wandered off but we like the actors.” The Washington Post called it a “low-budget, underwhelming B-movie,” which still sounds better than most meetings I’ve had this year.

And yes—this dropped right as Brokeback Mountain hit its 20th anniversary, which means some people were probably hoping for another complex, layered, emotionally gut-wrenching western. The Unholy Trinity is… not that. It’s more of a shoot-first, emotionally-process-later kind of situation. Less longing glances and more “pass the dynamite.”

But hey, not every western needs to make you cry in a tent. Some are just here to give Samuel L. Jackson a rifle and let him monologue about justice while chewing beef jerky.

I give The Unholy Trinity 3 out of 5 dusty stares, and I assume someone gets shot mid-sentence by a character named Wyatt, Colt, or “the banker.”