The Wide West is the fourth installment in Alexander Nevsky’s ongoing Western saga, following Gunfight at Rio Bravo (2023), Taken from Rio Bravo (2024), and Gold of Rio Bravo (2024). Each of these films blend classic American Western tropes with Eastern European action style and looks intriguing for fans of niche genre crossovers.
This latest chapter continues in the same spirit. Nevsky plays another stoic, rugged hero Max, of course – who rides into a lawless frontier town caught in the grip of local events. Sound familiar? That’s because it is.
Nevsky’s character follows a formula made iconic by Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars (1964). A lone gunman enters town. He doesn’t say much. He watches. He shoots. The town trembles. That basic narrative structure is alive and well here.
The Wide West leans heavily on throwback action beats – slow-motion shootouts, bare-knuckle brawls, and fistfuls of one-liners delivered with thick accents and deadpan faces. Don’t expect Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (1954) as this isn’t a carefully crafted tale of moral complexity or team-building under pressure. It’s a low-budget flick, shot fast and rough, with just enough grit to keep it moving.
If you know Nevsky’s previous work, you won’t be surprised. The Rio Bravo trilogy was built on this same formula: broad characters, simplified plots, and brute-force action. Fans don’t come for subtlety or polish – they come to see Nevsky clean house with a six-shooter.
What makes The Wide West somewhat interesting is its occasional nods to the cross-cultural mythos between cowboys and samurai.
It doesn’t pull it off as well as Red Sun (1971), the cult film that paired Charles Bronson with Toshirô Mifune and Alain Delon. That movie had real tension, unexpected humor, and a sense of cultural contrast that worked. The Wide West tries to evoke a similar east-meets-west theme, but it’s more of a visual nod than a narrative core. There’s a Japanese side character here – clearly meant to evoke a ronin vibe – but you will be surprised to see two sumo fighters played by Hiroki Sumi and Takashi Ichinojo. I want to say special words about acting of Kaz Kobayashi who played Takanosuke, for me, he is one of the stand out characters.
Ichinojō Takashi is a former professional sumo wrestler from Arkhangai, Mongolia. He was the second foreign-born wrestler, and the first of non-Japanese descent allowed to debut at an elevated rank in the third makushita division of professional sumo due to his amateur sumo success.
The supporting cast includes a few regulars such as Joe Cornet, Tatiana Neva, Nick Baillie, Kerry Goodwin, and Sean Murray. There’s a grizzled sheriff, a gang leader, and a saloon girl with a heart of gold. You’ve seen them all before. Think of it like a grindhouse film with Western aesthetics: it’s not trying to reinvent the wheel – it’s just keeping the horse moving.
If you’re a fan of Nevsky’s previous Rio Bravo entries and basic lone-gunman Westerns then you’ll find The Wide West a good way to spend 90 minutes. The Wide West doesn’t aim for greatness, it knows its audience and delivers what it promises.
Watch it on Xumo Play.