Aaron Eckhart's 83-Minute Gritty Neo-Western Becomes A Global Streaming Hit

Thanks to "Yellowstone" and its various offshoots, Paramount+ has become the primary purveyor of neo-Western entertainment in Hollywood. But the streamer isn't just home to wildly popular Taylor Sheridan dramas. It also has a few great neo-Western movies worth a look, and Aaron Eckhart's latest has just topped the streamer's charts worldwide. Unfortunately, "Thieves Highway" isn't available on Paramount+ in the United States. But if you happen to live stateside and have a Hulu subscription, take this as a sign to check out the movie on Hulu/Disney+.

A department of agriculture agent might not seem like the most badass designation for a B-movie hero, but Eckhart is here to surprise you with a film that proves cattle rustling didn't disappear along with the Old West and that livestock agents can hand out some brutal beatdowns. "Thieves Highway" sees Eckhart play a lonely lawman who single-handedly takes on a modern cattle rustling operation and winds up in a fight for his life. It's silly, over-the-top action that's well worth a weekend watch.

The film is directed by British stuntman-turned-filmmaker Jesse V. Johnson, the latest in a series of directors with extensive experience in fight choreography and stunt performing. We saw Chad Stahelski and David Leitch make the leap with "John Wick," and Sam Hargrave do the same with the "Extraction" movies. Johnson, meanwhile, has been making movies since the late '90s while simultaneously lending his stunt expertise to films such as 2001's "Planet of the Apes," "Mars Attacks!," and "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines." He's since become known for collaborating with fellow stunt maestro Scott Adkins on Netflix's "Debt Collector" films and Eckhart on 2024's "Chief of Station." Now he's re-teamed with the "Dark Knight" alum for a neo-Western that has international Paramount+ subscribers transfixed.

"Theives Highway" isn't one of the greatest Westerns of the 2020s, but it deserves more attention than it got upon its initial release. The film stars Aaron Eckhart as widowed Oklahoma livestock agent Frank Bennett, who encounters Devon Sawa's Jones and his gang of livestock thieves while driving home. He decides to try to apprehend them alone, but is quickly overwhelmed and thrust into a fight for his life. Alone and outnumbered, Bennett has to find a way to thwart the cattle rustlers before they can reach the border, while also making it back home in one piece.

The film doesn't have enough reviews on Rotten Tomatoes for a critic score, and its 18% audience score isn't the best advertisement for its quality. Still, Paramount+ viewers seem to be enjoying it. Per streaming viewership tracker FlixPatrol, "Thieves Highway" is sitting at number one on the streamer's movie charts in 18 countries. Even more impressive, the film hit Paramount+ internationally in early November and debuted in the top spot in all 18 of those markets. It's also sitting at number nine in Canada. All of that has made "Thieves Highway" the number one movie on Paramount+ worldwide.

That's not bad for a film nobody had heard of. While "Thieves Highway" is certainly a low-budget actioner of the B-movie variety, Jessie V. Johnson is one of the better directors working in that area, and the film has a compelling premise with its focus on cattle rustling in modern-day Oklahoma. If you're in the United States and intrigued to see what all the fuss is about, the movie is available to stream on Hulu and Disney+ right now.