An Unusual Look at Prison Life with Horses

itsbobr

The Wild Horse Inmate Program in NV, CA, AZ, KS and WY allows convicts to train wild Mustangs to be later sold at auction.

At a Maximum Security Prison in Nevada, we follow prisoner Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts) who admits he is not good with people, but is given a chance to train a wild Mustang and in time he learns to soften his attitude with the help of his horse Marcus, of course, and also with fellow convict Henry (Jason Mitchell) and Myles (Bruce Dern) who is in charge of Mustang training. Roman's daughter Martha (Gideon Adlon) visits him, but isn't sympathetic towards him as she -as a child - had to take care of her mother, who Roman almost killed. The prison is for hardened criminals, but all we know about Roman is that one incident.

The movie starts out with Prison Phycologist (Connie Britton) trying to get a read on Roman, who is not cooperative at all. In time, Roman is allowed to enter the training program and with his attitude we felt he wouldn't make it. We see him as a strong silent type who doesn't speak often. Many of the dialogues between prisoners were difficult to hear and understand and someone goofed in this regard.

The movie as a whole, with very few dialogues, almost seemed like a documentary and Voice-Over narratives would have helped our understanding regarding some scenes and why they were in there. Otherwise we felt these scenes were supposed to be cut, but weren't.

You will see many inmates become overly attached to their Mustang and you may need that box of Kleenex especially when the Mustang is sold at auction and goes to a new owner.

This is unlike any movie you will ever see because we see prison life in an arena we are not familiar with. Robert Redford is an Executive Producer of the movie.

A statement at the end states that very few inmates go back to criminal activities once they leave the program. (7/10)

Violence: Yes, but brief.
Sex: No.
Nudity: No.
Drug Use: Yes.
Humor: No.
Language: Yes.
Rating: B

score 7/10

itsbobr 12 June 2019

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw4930158/