Metacritic reviews

Tautly directed by Kiefer’s longtime “24’’ helmer Jon Cassar, Forsaken greatly benefits from the poignant teaming of its father-and-son stars — as well as Michael Wincott as an especially elegant and eloquent gunfighter who has great respect for John.

Refreshingly and unabashedly sincere in its embrace of Western conventions and archetypes, this pleasingly retrograde sagebrush saga should play exceptionally well with currently under-served genre fans.

Jon Cassar’s film rejects the recent revisionism that’s flooded the genre. His take – a straight rip-off of the classics – is weirdly refreshing as a result.

Once the pieces are all in their places, the deliberate set-up begins to pay some dividends to those who relish the form.

An opportunity to see the Sutherlands onscreen together — with Donald playing Kiefer’s disapproving preacher dad — is the only new thing that Forsaken has to offer. Whether that’s enough will vary according to taste.

The best you can say about Forsaken is that it attracted a good cast, sports the odd cool character or hard-bitten bit of dialogue and that the rare surprises in its stolid, formulaic script are pleasant ones.

It's a treat to see Kiefer and Donald side by side, and both give fine performances. But a pairing this special deserved a story more unique than "reluctant killer reaches for his guns."

A starry father-son pairing is largely squandered in Forsaken, an old-school western that is a little too old school for its own good.

The film adheres to the dictionary definition of a classical genre without ever attempting to subvert it.

Amid Kiefer's narrow-eyed glowering, Donald's exhausted-sage routine, and Moore's approximation of rural homeliness, only Wincott seems to fit in, exuding a poised, laconic cold-bloodedness that stands in stark contrast to the film's inert phoniness.