Trail of Vengeance

Trail of Vengeance is a 2025 western movie set in 1875 in Kentucky but filmed at several locations in northwestern Arkansas. The movie bears some thematic similarities to Charles Portis’s True Grit. Trail of Vengeance was written by Johnny Remo and Daniel Blackman and directed by Remo; the pair had previously worked on God’s Country Song (2023), another Arkansas production.

The movie opens with Colonel Davis (Jeff Fahey), owner of the Davis Plantation and candidate for the U.S. Senate, having his henchmen Frank Cooper (Eric Nelsen) and Zeke (James Landry Hébert) beat and then kill Daniel Westwood (Daniel Backman), seeking information about certain Pinkerton agents.

The film then turns to Katherine Atherton (Rumer Willis, daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore), who tells her husband Caleb (Jeremy Sumpter) that she is pregnant. One day, when he is coming back to their homestead, he finds Frank, Zeke, and Harry (Sean Barry) holding Katherine hostage. It turns out that Caleb’s real name is William Kirkwood and that he worked for the Pinkerton detective agency during the Civil War. Frank demands a codename and a location. Caleb manages to shoot Harry but gets killed himself. Zeke knocks Katherine unconscious and starts to rape her, but Frank intervenes, and the men leave.

Katherine buries Caleb and finds among his effects a letter urging her to contact one John Scobell (Gbenga Akinnagbe) should anything happen to him; he has also left enough money for her to survive for the rest of her life. (Scobell was a real-life Pinkerton agent, a former slave who provided undercover service to the Union army.) She goes to the trading post run by Hoko (Graham Greene) and sends a telegram to Scobell before riding into town. She finds him in a cabin on the edge of town and explains what has happened. He initially refuses to help, and she rides away, but he catches up with her at night, saying that Caleb had told Scobell to take Katherine someplace in the event of his death.

Frank and Zeke catch up to Jared Starwood (Ryan Francis), another former Pinkerton, demanding to know if he told anyone, in Jared’s words, that the “colonel massacred innocent women and children” during the war. He refuses to talk, and they kill him. When they report back to Colonel Davis, Zeke admits that they left Caleb’s wife alive, and he orders them to kill her. They start tracking Katherine, extracting from Hoko the name of the person to whom she sent her telegram before killing him.

Scobell takes Katherine to the orphanage where she grew up, where she learns that her biological father is Colonel Davis. When they bunk down for the night, Scobell tells Katherine that Davis had the notorious William Quantrill massacre a number of civilians in Kansas, and that the Pinkertons knew about it. The next day, they raid the Davis plantation. Scobell manages to penetrate the main house. Frank sneaks up on him, and Katherine shoots his ear off through the window, accidentally hitting Scobell in the process. Believing she has killed Scobell, she retreats to their hideout, but Zeke attacks her there, and she kills him. She returns to the plantation and attacks, killing the guards one by one, until Frank captures her. She manages later to break free from Frank and shoot him with a hidden pistol. She confronts Davis one last time, killing him, before riding off into a sunset.

The end shows Katherine teaching her son, Caleb Jr. (Connor Esterson), to shoot a rifle as she receives a telegram from Scobell, who survived the attack on the Davis plantation. Ending text reveals that after Caleb Jr. came of age and went to study law, Katherine became a Pinkerton agent under the tutelage of Hattie Lawton (another real-life figure).

Trail of Vengeance, which started production under the title Broken Trail, was filmed at several locations in northwestern Arkansas starting on June 29, 2024, and ending the following month. Filming locations included Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park, the historic Main Street of Van Buren (which was closed to the public and covered in dirt for a weekend), the Headquarters House Museum in Fayetteville (Washington County), and Cane Hill (Washington County); some footage was also shot in Washburn, Missouri.

The movie was released on DVD and video-on-demand on May 23, 2025. Reviews were mixed about the final product. Markos Papadatos of Digital Journal praised it as “a first-rate western that will keep the audience at the edge of their seats.” However, Ferdosa Abdi of Screen Rant described the movie as “simply boring because it doesn’t put effort into endearing us to Katherine,” with the actress playing her, Willis, being hindered by “the lackluster script and generally poor direction.”

For additional information:
Abdi, Ferdosa. “Trail of Vengeance Review: I Could Not Get into This Well-Meaning but Poorly Constructed Western Starring Rumer Willis.” Screen Rant, June 1, 2025. https://screenrant.com/trail-of-vengeance-movie-review-2025/ (accessed October 15, 2026).

Dale, Tina Alvery. “‘Broken Trail’ Brings Film Production to Downtown Van Buren.” Talk Business & Politics, July 15, 2024. https://talkbusiness.net/2024/07/broken-trail-brings-film-production-to-downtown-van-buren/ (accessed October 15, 2026).

Kutter, Lynn. “Prairie Grove Location to Be Featured in Movie.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 18, 2024, pp. 1B, 5B. Online at https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2024/jul/18/scenes-for-indepenent-western-movie-broken-trail/ (accessed October 15, 2026).

Lacicero, Sadie. “Van Buren’s Historic Main Street to Be Used as Movie Set.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, River Valley edition, July 1, 2024, pp. 1, 3. Online at https://www.rivervalleydemocratgazette.com/news/2024/jun/30/hollywood-in-historic-van-buren-main-street-to-be/ (accessed October 15, 2026).

“Trail of Vengeance.” Internet Movie Database. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32812105/ (accessed October 15, 2026).

Papadatos, Markos. “Review: Rumer Willis Seeks Justice in Western Thriller ‘Trail of Vengeance.’” Digital Journal, May 23, 2025. https://www.digitaljournal.com/entertainment/review-rumer-willis-seeks-justice-in-western-thriller-trail-of-vengeance/article (accessed October 15, 2026).

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas