‘The Old Man’ arrives at Disney +: an immense Jeff Bridges crowns the best work in the career of the director of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’

The series premieres on Disney+The Old Man‘, in which Robert Levine and Jonathan Steinberg adapt Thomas Perry’s novel of the same name with some changes of scenery that do not affect its essence: a riveting twilight spy thriller whose narrative follows the convenience of its genre, but in a much more lax way, considering that its protagonist is elderly.

In this way, the series allows itself to touch on existential questions and the gray scales in the truths that always deceive. The duration of most of the seven episodes of the first season is longer than usual, Steinberg and Levine take their time to fully develop the characters and subplots, focusing, above all, on the complex figure of their protagonist, an extraordinary Jeff Bridges, who composes here one of the best characters of his career.

Bridges plays an old man with a weak bladder, aching bones, and severe memory loss, but we soon see that this doesn’t stop him from being a tough and cunning old bastard willing to do anything to survive. Dan Chase has lived in hiding for 30 years and is suddenly on the run. We soon learn that this is not his real name, nor the only one. We also get to see him as a young CIA agent in Afghanistan, played by Bill Heck, and we know he’s trying to evade revenge for something that happened at the time.

Cash, false identities, prepared places to hide… this is not your typical grandpa. The first two episodes of ‘The Old Man’ are masterful. The address of jon watts is purely cinematographic, the silent chases have a precise staging, almost humorous, in which the camera tells everything without the need for dialogue. Director of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home‘ he returns to his ‘Cop Car’ stage but at a level of form that he has never been seen before. It is without a doubt his best work.

Post-action cinema far from the trend ‘John Wick’

The scenes with Chase’s two dogs are tremendous and in general there is a feeling of watching something akin to ‘Fargo‘ and the Coen brothers more than a post-John Wick movie. As we get into the plot, action scenes give way to mystery and hidden relationships of the characters, there are two timelines that keep the plot going. One is Chase’s past, and the other is the present, with the connection to FBI Deputy Director Harold Harper, who is in charge of finding him, making the subsequent investigation and game of cat and mouse biased.

Things get even more complicated when a ghost from their shared troubled past returns to haunt them. In the midst of it all, Agent Adams and her mysterious identity present a different kind of plot dynamic. We see attention swinging between these characters, both past and present, but none of them are one-dimensional. Everyone has secrets that haunt and define them. Mirages of the past, search for answers and redemption… there is nothing black or white.

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The universe of ‘The Old Man’ is uncomfortable. We see Bridges escape and display amazing abilities and it’s impossible not to empathize with the actor, but we’re never entirely sure that we should. Far from being a hero, we know that he is capable of doing terrible things.and when his path crosses that of Zoe (Amy Brenneman), whose only mistake is allowing him to rent a cabin, the old man begins to seem more of a threat and introduces a rich moral dimension into the dynamic of the series.

Cinematic ambition and a dubious cliffhanger

The entire cast is excellent, but John Lithgow is still spectacular as a counterpart, and his character shows different weaknesses than Chase. The second half of the series is more relaxed and puts the objective in the complex relationship that unites all the pieces on the board, the action sequences are scarcer and more distant from each other, although whenever they appear, the direction and composition have a precision and military effectiveness, especially it is necessary to highlight the road sequence of the last episode.

But overall, the soul of ‘The Old Man’ is the sprawling dialogue, disparate elements of noir, and a twist of past and present that give it an unpredictability missing from current shows, which puts it at the level of great series with cinematic ambition and unusual elements, such as the careful score by T Bone Burnett and Patrick Warren. The big problem with the series, however, is that it decides to cut its ending with one of the most unsatisfying cliffhangers ever seen in a season finale.

The Old Man

This is not a problem because there will be a second, but as it is presented it seems that they have left episode 8 of the series in a drawer. A stain that fails to erase the fact that ‘The Old Man’ is a brilliantly written, acted and directed thriller. that keeps our assumptions changing at all times and manages to get us into the fantasy of living what old age would be like for a relentless guy who refuses to fall and is willing to put a bullet through anyone who tries to give up before time.

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‘The Old Man’ arrives at Disney +: an immense Jeff Bridges crowns the best work in the career of the director of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’