The Mustang Review: Matthias Schoenaerts wears prison horse drama

Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts) is the kind of man who would fight with a horse. In fact, that's exactly what the bald-headed killer does the first time he's placed in a round pen with the unruly mustang he's been tasked with taming and preparing for an auction. It does not matter if the stallion weighs more than 1,000 pounds, or the horses do not have fists; Roman only knows how to express himself by violence. That's why he was locked up in the detention center in northern Nevada for a good part of the decade and his lengthy stay in prison was often interrupted by periods of solitary confinement.

"I'm not good with people," Roman snarls at the prison psychologist (Connie Britton) who tries to help her return to the general population. It seems he is not better with animals. And yet, he recognizes himself in this exuberant bronco; he can not help but talk to another living creature who fights so much. And during the poetic and elementary debut of Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, these two wild beasts will tame as best they can.

Taking place as a powerful mix between "Lean on Pete" and "The Shawshank Redemption", "The Mustang" begins by informing us that 100,000 wild horses are still roaming the western United States, even though the Bureau of Land Management says the country can only support a fraction of that. The government's solution: adoption and euthanasia. Each year, however, a small number of horses – perhaps those who are too ferocious to be domesticated, but too full of life to be slaughtered – are selected for the Wild Horse Inmate program, where convicts are responsible for training and training. prepare the horses. to put them up for auction (this is a real initiative and many of his graduates appear in the film with leading roles).

It is never easy to break a wild animal, but the prologue of the Clermont-Tonnerre film does not express how difficult it can be, since a helicopter (very) flying at low altitude directs the flock in a small enclosures whose blades slice Air a few meters from so many neglected manes. It is a visceral introduction – our first glimpse of Nevada's rugged mountains that cradle and cut off the world – and convey the raw energy of any kind of prison.

It's the kind of power that Schoenaerts has barely repressed since his breakthrough in Bullhead. Even in his most docile roles, he often seems to threaten to get out of his own skin. The scenario of Clermont-Tonnerre, co-written with Mona Fastvold and Brock, Norman Brock, fits perfectly in this impotent rage, while reducing Roman to a small child who does not control his own emotions. This seems like a minor miracle every time that he manages to wince through an interaction without hurting himself or hurting anyone else; each instance is as warmly unnatural as the scene where a violent thunderstorm falls on the court, forcing all the horses into the prison kitchen for security reasons. Schoenaerts has never been better.

"The Mustang"

Characteristics of the focus

It's a short but patient film, filled with evocative images and still fully invested in the present moment (at one point, the entirety of "The National Anthem" plays while the camera watches the prison horses bristle under their strained riders), so It is easy to forgive a very spared story that does not always deserve the change it claims to instigate in its characters.

"The Mustang" is much stronger at the beginning and the end – at the extremes of her emotions – as she sails between them. The first scene between Roman and the horse that he will later name Marquis is particularly powerful. It almost looks like a tribute to the opening piece of "Jurbadic Park" because the stallion is stuck inside a dark pen and does big damage to anyone stupid enough to get too close. The prisoner is so obviously electrified by this anger that the old man who runs the program (Bruce Dern, deliciously abrasive) insists that he be part of it. If Roman can break this horse, he may be able to break himself. Judging by the way he is attacking his pregnant teenager ("Blocker" star Gideon Adlon), he still has a long way to go.

The process will not be easy, and "The Mustang" goes around in circles when it means pushing Roman in the right direction. Britton is largely wasted, as is Jason Mitchell in the role of a more experienced inmate who functions as a mascot for the program. A subplot plot of drug smuggling never goes beyond a means of achieving one's goal, even if the scenario avoids getting bogged down in this drama, and avoids the too many exhausted storms that one s & # 39; s # He's waiting to see in a movie that almost never leaves prison.

While shooting in an abandoned (but well preserved) Nevada prison, Clermont-Tonnerre captures such a lively place that Roman's world feels almost immune to clichés. Roman himself is not always so lucky, as the character is more of a type than a nuanced man, but Schoenaerts makes a hearty meal of man's frustrations, and his implicit conscience, the total redemption is not necessarily realistic Someone who is guilty of his crime (pulling the same trick as the recent "Escape at Dannemora" of Showtime, Clermont-Tonnerre expects to have won a measure empathy for his protagonist before giving you the bloody details of his crime).

"The Mustang" is a small film about a subtle transformation, but the time of its closure – even if it was designed – is as touching as it was unexpected. Some horses can not be broken, but the enthusiastic beginnings of Clermont-Tonnerre resonate with the feeling that even unforgivable men can be stopped.

Category B

"The Mustang" was premiered at the Sundance Festival 2019. Focus Features will be released in select theaters on March 15th.

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