Prison dramas have always been something of a niche sub-genre within the film industry. Sometimes they rise to great heights, like Cool Hand Luke or The Shawshank Redemption, but more often than not they wind up overlooked, forgotten about, or just ignored. Honestly, there’s a good reason for that. Prison is not exactly a fun place and heavy dramas aren’t really crowd pleasers either so, naturally, it’s incredibly difficult to make an enjoyable movie set in a penitentiary. Some comedies have tried and had moderate success but those are not exactly meaningful or impactful films…at least in the way that a prison story could be. The Mustang tries desperately to be one of those important stories but struggles to escape its own predictable genre cliches.
For a category of movie that’s already very niche, foreign productions about the American prison system have got to be a needle in a haystack. For Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, this was an interesting project to tackle as a debut feature film. Even though this story is based on a real program involving horse training as rehabilitation for prisoners, this idea would have been much better served as a documentary. Scripting the drama walked the screenplay right into all the most obvious cliches without providing substantial depth for any of them, including the lead role. Drug smuggling. Check. Black versus white racial divide. Check. Shower Scene. Got it. Obligatory shanking in the yard. Yurp. Solitary confinement. Duh. A really angry inmate who slowly starts to come around. Uh huh. Intensely emotional outburst during visitation. That’s Yahtzee! Look, I understand that Clermont-Tonnerre was trying to paint a picture here but it certainly looks a lot like she was working off a checklist and used some incredibly broad strokes to get there. However, what this movie lacks in originality and depth it makes up for in heart.
Prison cliches aside, this is a redemption story and there’s value there. The meat of the story focuses on one prisoner, Roman Coleman, and his journey to reclaim some of the humanity he’s lost. For some reason or another, he’s given the chance to participate in a wild-horse training program and, naturally, he’s not really interested at first but after a couple of specific incidents he decides to go all-in. The relationship, the struggle and eventual bond that’s built, between him and his horse is really where this movie is at its best and Matthias Schoenaerts certainly has his moments in this performance but the character of Roman is basically one beat. He plays the intense ends of the spectrum very well but there are more than a fair amount of instances where he’s seemingly more moody than anything else. No number of therapy sessions with Connie Britton’s unnamed psychologist seemed to make a dent. Thankfully Jason Mitchell (Straight Outta Compton) and the venerable Bruce Dern were there in supporting roles to help build Schoenaerts character arc, Mitchell the unlikely ally and Dern the crotchety old rancher who leads the rehab program. There were actually quite a few good roles around the lead in this screenplay written by Clermont-Tonnerre, Mona Fastvold, and Brock Norman Brock but none of them were as fleshed out as they could have been.
For a story such as this, the animal element played a large factor. Having the horses interacting with the actors was one thing but representing them as the wild animals they are was something different. Ruben Impens (Raw) used some really nice aerial cinematography to capture these mustangs running in full gallop across the open plains, which is something you just don’t see outside of nature programming. In was an important tone-setter for the rest of the film and the symmetry, between the horses and the prisoners, is important but subtle…particularly highlighted by his use of intense close-ups. Jed Kurzel composed some beautiful string music to go along with this feature and did more to cultivate the emotional timbre of the film than the acting and the script could do on their own.
Sometimes, as a critic, it’s difficult to reconcile enjoying a film that you know isn’t especially good. Fortunately, I grew up embracing many movies that I can look back on now and acknowledge their weaknesses. The Mustang surely isn’t a bad film because the story has character even if the script doesn’t do the best job of getting that point across.
Recommendation: If you like prison dramas…or horses…then there’s probably enough to make it worth a look. If you like prison movies featuring the inmate-horse relationship, well then you really struck gold. This undoubtedly has very narrow appeal but if you’re looking from something other than the latest box-office juggernaut then check it out.