BY ROGER WATSON
If ever there was a film that deserved the subtitle ‘Or what the Hell is going on?’ it’s The Unholy Trinity (released in 2025 in the United States) which only scores 40% on Rotten Tomatoes. Starring Pierce Brosnan as the sheriff of Trinity in 1870s Montana and the ubiquitous Samuel L Jackson as a gun-toting preacher, it should have done better.
The action opens in a prison where in good Western movie style, there is going to be a hanging. The man, Isaac by name, due for the drop proclaims his innocence and his son, Henry, who witnesses his execution, believes he was framed. Henry sets off in pursuit of the person who framed his father, a corrupt sheriff called Saul Butler.
His searching brings him to Trinity where Gabriel Dove (Pierce Brosnan) is sheriff. Dove tries to cool Henry’s heels a bit, telling him that as far as the people of Trinity were concerned, Saul Butler was a hero and his father deserved to die. But Butler is dead now, killed the townsfolk believe by a Native American woman for reasons that are unclear. Henry locates the woman, but does not believe that she killed Butler, and tells her to go away for her own safety.
At this point in the film, it is about time for the inevitable saloon scene, and this is provided when Gabriel Dove – who takes pity on Henry – pays for him to stay in the town’s hotel. Enter a bar room prostitute (the Western genre clichés are abundant) over whom Henry and another man have a dispute. The prostitute is shot by Henry’s assailant and, in turn, is shot by Henry.
Naturally, it looks as if Henry shot both the man and the prostitute and he is pursued as a result. His life is saved by the preacher, St Christopher (Samuel L Jackson), who is handy with a gun. It transpires that St Christopher knew Isaac (Henry’s father). They robbed gold from the South during the Civil War, but Isaac ran off with the gold and hid it. St Christopher believes the gold is hidden in Trinity.
The hunt for the gold is on. Is it under the sheriff’s house, or another house? Who would know? The Native American girl is tracked down, at which point the sheriff owns up to having killed Saul Butler to protect a child. Lots of shooting, lots of bodies, but the sheriff and the Native American girl ride off to his house where she recognises Henry and says she knew him when he was a boy. The townsfolk arrive, less than happy with the sheriff.
More shooting, more bodies. Henry is captured, then gets free. St Christopher shoots a barman who seems to think the gold is buried under the town church. The town preacher is killed in the process by St Christopher in a dispute about the Holy Trinity (only joking, it was about the gold) and St Christopher starts digging.
I forgot to contextualise my viewing of the film, which was on a transatlantic flight to Washington, DC. The Singleton malt whisky was flowing like water and I was beginning to think I had drunk too much, so confused was I by the plot. But, no, it appears from other reviews that this was pretty much the view taken by sober others.
I have no idea if they found the gold under the church but I do recall the sheriff giving Henry a badge and making him a deputy. Which was nice. Why he did this, I have no idea, but that was where the film ended.
Before concluding, I would not want readers of this review to think that I did not like the film. Being confused, especially under the influence of a single malt (on top of champagne, gin and tonic, wine, and port) is quite normal on long-haul flights. I loved every minute of it. What more could a man ask for from a western than a hanging, some great lines from Pierce Brosnan and Samuel L Jackson, an attractive native American woman (Q’orianka Waira Qoiana Kilcher) and lots of shooting?
If I had my way, all Western movies would be made this way: stuff the plot and get the revolvers out.
Roger Watson is a Registered Nurse and Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Education in Practice.