Movie Review - The Mustang

I have mixed feelings about this film. I think it's a very well made film, thanks in large part to the tremendous performance by Matthias Schoenaerts, a Belgian actor who was in some prestigious foreign films where he played brooding, aggressive, non-verbal and difficult to connect to people. He continues that kind of character here. He's typecast in a way, but he's so brilliant at it that one doesn't mind that he's doing it here again. It's hard to think that he could top his bravura roles in Bullhead (2012) and Rust and Bone (2012), but it helps that here he's given a bit more to say than normal, particularly an incredible monologue, which he delivers in a knockout fashion.

Schoenaerts stars as Roman Coleman, an inmate at Eli State Penitentiary, a prison somewhere in the middle of Nevada. He was in isolation, presumably for fighting or committing some kind of violence in the prison. At the beginning of the film, he's released from isolation and put back into general population or gen-pop. He has to talk to a counselor, played by Connie Britton (Nashville and Friday Night Lights), about him focusing or directing himself into more positive or productive activity. He's asked if he has any vocation in mind. He simply says that he wants to work outside. The counselor decides to put him to work on what's known as the Wild Horse Program.

Directed and co-written by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre in her feature debut, the movie opens with a statistic about how horses like wild mustangs are basically endangered species. It's revealed that the Bureau of Land Management, which is a federal agency that oversees wilderness areas, national monuments and other protected places, is responsible for protecting and conserving endangered species. That bureau runs this Wild Horse Program that works in conjunction with prisons in various states to have inmates train the wild horses, so they can be adopted or utilized by other agencies like the U.S. Border Patrol. De Clermont-Tonnerre's film takes us into this program and shows us what and how the men train the horses, leading up to a public auction.

We see a bunch of inmates out in a field or adjacent farm with fencing for various horses. About a dozen or so of these guys works with one horse. These other guys work to domesticate or tame the horse, so they can ride and parade it for the upcoming auction. These other guys seem to have had a bit more experience with taming horses than Roman. Roman has no clue on how to tame a horse, so he has to learn and then proceed to do it. The majority of the film is him trying to tame one particular horse whom he names Marcus.

Marcus is a particularly aggressive horse. It's so aggressive that it has to be locked up in a small, metallic shed. Unlike the other horses that get confined with simple fencing, Marcus is put in a small, box-like shack. It's supposed to be analogous to the prison cell that Roman had while in isolation. In fact, Roman recognizes it as such when he first sees it. His attention is drawn to it because Marcus is using his hoof to bag on the side of the shed or shack. Roman is constantly staring at it. He can't ignore it like the other men do.

There's even a moment when De Clermont-Tonnerre's camera makes the analogy between Roman and Marcus the horse by showing them put into similar physical positions. The film shows through the camera move and shot that despite being different species both Roman and Marcus are the same. They're both wild animals who perhaps can't be tamed, so both have to be put in more confined cells or be restrained in similar ways. It takes some time, but both develop a kinship for each other.

In developing that kinship, this film becomes akin to films like My Friend Flicka (1943), White Mane (1953), The Black Stallion (1979) or The Horse Whisperer (1998). This film even has a kinship with movies that are about people bonding with wild animals that aren't horses like Free Willy (1993). Most of these films though involve a child interacting with the animal and befriending it. Most of those films have protagonists who, while being friendly, still want to use the horse for some work, even if it's riding or some kind of human transportation. Free Willy is the only film of the bunch that recognized that wild animals should be free and totally free.

Obviously, an orca is different than a mustang in terms of the relationship and history with humans. Humans don't live in the water, so obviously the relationship could never be the same. Both animals are considered endangered. Yet, there does seem to be a contradiction with the way horses are regarded both in the real world and within this movie. De Clermont-Tonnerre's film in a way trafficks in that contradiction. The contradiction regards what the relationship should be between horses and humans in the modern era, the era in which they're endangered. Should we treat them as we've been treating them, which is property to be used and disposed whenever humans feel like it? Or, should the horses be free and totally free?

That question is complicated due to the issue of limited, land space. Human population and growth of civilization can't be stopped. This leaves wild animals with limited, land space. Certain wild animals, if left unchecked, could have their populations grow to a point where they can encroach onto human civilization. At that point is where we find the crucial conflict that this film avoids.

Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert!

In 1971, Nixon signed the Wild and Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. This law protected herds of horses that were being mistreated and subjected to animal cruelty, mainly due to ranchers and hunters wanting them gone. The law came up with a way of rounding up horses to keep the excess numbers down. Those horses are then auctioned off. However, adoption rates haven't kept the excess numbers totally down. Spaying or neutering the animals is a possibility, but horse advocates refuse to allow the horses to be killed. Reportedly, there's also a debate over whether mustangs in particular are a native species or an invasive species. Mustangs didn't originate in the United States. They were brought to this continent by Christopher Columbus and Spanish explorers.

In the end, Roman makes the choice to set Marcus free. An incident during the auction causes the horse to hurt Roman. It makes the people in charge want to euthanize or kill the animal. It's a drastic move, but it seems like everyone is at their wit's end with this horse. Because this film sets up the fact that mustangs are endangered and ignores the excess numbers in certain areas of the U.S., euthanizing the horse might seem barbaric and tragic. Yet, as mentioned earlier, the issue is more complicated. Unlike with orcas, humans don't live in the water, so the limited, land space conflict isn't exactly the same. I think that people who ride horses when there are cars available to be barbaric, but even I might not object to euthanizing horses in this case.

Roman's act of freeing Marcus isn't as gratifying as freeing Willy in the film Free Willy. Willy is going into the ocean where humans can't or won't be able to catch or reach him. Marcus is running free but he's running onto land where he could easily be caught again just as he and the other horses were easily caught in the opening of this film. Roman's act therefore is merely symbolic. Perhaps, he saved the life of that one horse, but the film doesn't devote enough time to the specific issue of the mustang population for it to be truly effective.

The real issue is the Wild Horse Program and its effect on inmates. Some of the data and statistics on screen at the end indicate that recidivism rates among inmates who participate in this program go down. Unlike a film such as Running Wild (2017) with Sharon Stone, this movie is told from the inmate's perspective solely. Scenes involving Roman's daughter, Martha, played by Gideon Adlon, are supposed to indicate Roman's change and his improvement. It's not clear though why the recidivism rates go down. We don't know what it is about working with horses that translates to a less criminal life for these inmates outside the prison bars. It could just be that working with horses makes the men less violent, but that's certainly not the case for cowboys in almost every Western film I've ever seen.

Despite my mixed feelings, I still think this is a very well made film. If you liked this film, you also might enjoy last year's The Rider by Chloé Zhao.

Rated R for language, some violence and drug use.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 36 mins.