The last time most of us saw Tim Blake Nelson in the saddle, he was the warblin’ deadeye from the title of the Coen brothers’ “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” a jovial caricature of the philosophizing cowboy (and the filmmakers’ own reputation for cruelly funny storytelling). But also, because of the actor’s reliability, a figure that still felt rooted in the history of the horse opera.
I have no idea if filmmaker Potsy Ponciroli wrote the coiled, small-scale western “Old Henry” for Nelson’s particular gifts with frontier authenticity, again, he’s the guy in the movie’s name, only this time a full-on lead, but it sure does seem like Ponciroli did. Seeming is a lot of what “Old Henry” is about too: what looks cut and dried but might not be, appears bucolic but isn’t exactly, and what only sounds truthful.