I don’t know how much producer Robert Redford influenced “The Mustang” (2019) but it has a quiet poetry to it that I’ve felt in some of his other late-career works. The analogy at the root of the story is blatantly obvious. Convicts training mustangs. Wild horses, wild men. Both must be tamed, for their own good. Get it? Yet what could have been a cookie-cutter film is filled with nuance, much of it ugly, as one might expect in the real world of a state prison. But it’s the nuance, including the mournfully symphonic soundtrack, that will draw you in.
Archives for posts with tag: Connie Britton
The core audience for “American Ultra” (2015) is 20-year-old gamer types, not 50-year-old stay-at-home-on-a-Friday-night types. I get that. It was a wise move, since the gamers paid $10 to watch it in a theater, while I paid 60 cents to rent it from Redbox (and stay at home on a Friday night). So the fact I thought the violence was waaay too cartoonishly bloody means little. The fact I thought said violence put a damper on the ingeniously compelling story of a sleeper-cell stoner means little. I’m sure the gamers ate it up. My reward? Friday night with Connie Britton.
Some records will never be broken. I can’t think of one right now. I’m sure it involves Hank Aaron or Michael Jordan or somebody. Oh, wait, here’s one: Most Consecutive Movies Where You Play An Uptight White Guy. Jason Bateman has become the DiMaggio of WASPiness, even when he plays a Jewish dude, like in “This Is Where I Leave You” (2014). It’s a harmless little cliche about family dysfunction that plays like an episode of “Parenthood,” but with cussing, pot smoking and boob jokes (I’ve never actually watched “Parenthood,” maybe all that stuff is in the TV show, too).
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