Butler's Cinema Scene

“THE MUSTANG”  My rating: B+ 

96 minutes | MPAA rating: R

A violent, alienated man and an equally angry horse form an unexpected bond in “The Mustang,” an understated effort that often plays like documentary but carries the emotional weight of a classic drama.

Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre’s film opens with a roundup of wild mustangs in a vast Western landscape. The animals are herded by  helicopters into stock pens. From there they are loaded onto trucks.

Cut to a Nevada prison where Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts) has just joined the general population after  months in solitary confinement.  We never learn what he did to merit that treatment; all he’ll say is that he’s not good with people.

The prison psychologist (Connie Britton) struggles to get a word out of the sullen, withdrawn inmate. She’s trying to find a prison job or activity that will interest him. Finally she settles on the horse-training program, which takes recently captured wild mustangs and turns them into well-behaved riding horses that can be sold at auction.

Not that Roman overnight becomes a cowboy.  His main job involves shoveling shit. But he’s intrigued by the violent horse that occupies a metal shed on the prison grounds. The animal inside spends all day banging on the walls and shrieking its defiance. It’s a kindred spirit.

The old hand who runs the program (Bruce Dern) believes the horse is too mean to be domesticated, but gives Roman — who has absolutely no background with these animals — a chance to train the beast. If it doesn’t kill him first.

Matthias Schoenaerts

As directed by Clermont-Tonnerre, a 35-year-old French actress who specializes in comedy, “The Mustang” hasn’t a wasted word or moment.  The story of Roman’s relationship with the horse is mostly told in visual terms; very little time is devoted to exposition or laying out his personal history. (And there’s no attempt to humanize the horse…it’s an animal, pure and simple.)

What we do pick up is offered less as a big revelation than as a throwaway line.  In a visiting room encounter with his estranged pregnant daughter (Gideon Adlon) we gather that Roman went to prison for accidentally killing his wife in a moment of rage.

Mostly “Mustang” gives us an insider’s view of prison. Shot in a real penitentiary with handheld cameras and employing inmates for much of its supporting cast, the film manages to be both brutally realistic and visually splendid (there are some heartbreaking shots of men working with horses; in the background, past the tall barbed-wire fences, we can see snow-capped mountains).

There are a few digressions into the usual prison cliches.  Some members of the mustang crew steal ketamine — a veterinary anesthesia that provokes hallucinations in humans — to distribute behind bars. And there’s constant tension between the black and white inmate populations (though not among the horse trainers, who have formed a sort of brotherhood).

For Schoenaerts, a Belgian actor who remains largely unknown despite a resume of international credits (“Far from the Madding Crowd” opposite  Casey Mulligan, “The Danish Girl,” “A Bigger Splash,” “Red Sparrow”), Roman provides a breakthrough role.

With his shaved head and tattoos, Schoenaerts’ Roman is an intimidating figure, but bit by bit the actor scrapes away calloused layers to reveal the hurt and angry man inside. There’s an incredible moment late in the film when his horse, after weeks of recalcitrant behavior, spontaneously nuzzles the prisoner…and the look of grateful awe on Schoenaert’s face is utterly devastating.

| Robert W. Butler