The Mustang (2019)

The Mustang: Directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre. With Matthias Schoenaerts, Jason Mitchell, Bruce Dern, Gideon Adlon. While participating in a rehabilitation program training wild mustangs, a convict at first struggles to connect with the horses and his fellow inmates, but he learns to confront his violent past as he soothes an especially feisty horse.

“Triumphs of the human spirit constitute perhaps cinemau0026#39;s most enduring story material, and this French film shot in Nevada brings a powerful existentialist message to the viewer without the preachiness one might expect of an American movie on the subject.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMatthias Schoenaerts, his shaven head and rock-solid physique suggesting a Vin Diesel, is magnificent in the lead role, a convict without hope or direction paralleled with the title wild horse heu0026#39;s tasked to train for sale to police departments or ranchers in a prison program run by craggy old Bruce Dern. Connie Britton makes the most of her two scenes as a prison psychologist working on rehabilitation.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMost of the cast is non-pro, actual prisoners from such a program giving solid performances for debuting feature director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre. Echoes of u0026quot;The Myth of Sysiphusu0026quot; and other existential writings underpin the action, but Laure carefully makes it a visual cinematic experience, not one of those 1950s Playhouse 90 classics from TVu0026#39;s Golden Age. Free of sentimentalism, it also keeps the melodramatic subplot involving chicanery and violence in prison to an absolute minimum, and is a wholly satisfying movie with universal appeal.”