Cavalos Domados

What actual makes me laugh when I read the reviews on IMDb is that most of the time movies with mediocre reviews are to me the best ones and movies with outstanding reviews I find them almost unwatchable. I don't know if it's me or if it is just the posh people that like movies from Lars Von Trier and David Lynch that review the most movies but I question myself if I have bad taste or what? I thought Broken Horses was a really good movie, with enough suspense to keep you interested during the whole movie. Unlike boring movies from Von Trier and Lynch where the story sucks big time and you kind of wish the movie ends as soon as possible. With this one I didn't get bored a second. Chris Marquette plays the mildly retarded brother brilliantly. I couldn't fail any of the actors actually. They were all good. The filming is also good and the story is also good. Everything about this movie is just good. Why it only gets such a low score on here is a mystery to me.

Greetings again from the darkness. The old adage "blood is thicker than water" has always been fruitful movie fodder. Writer/director Vidhu Vinod Chopra takes the theme to a small, dusty town on the Mexico border. He introduces us to the sons of the local sheriff … Buddy is the slow-witted eldest and Jakey the bespectacled musical prodigy.

Buddy is flashing his dead-eye aim at the shooting range when his father (Thomas Jane) is murdered right in front of him. Local mobster Mr. Hench (Vincent D'Onofrio) seizes the opportunity to utilize young Buddy's need for revenge. Jump ahead 15 years, and Jakey (Anton Yelchen, Star Trek) is engaged to Vittoria (Maria Valverde) and living in New York City as a classical violinist. Things get interesting when Buddy (Chris Marquette) entices Jakey to come visit after being away for eight years.

Jake isn't in town very long before he fully understands that Hench has a grip on Buddy, who is now a full-fledged hit-man engulfed in the various border gang wars. Here is where the brotherly bond kicks in. Watching it play out against the manipulative power of Hench provides the meatiest conflict within the film. The brothers admit to living on "different planets", but it's clear that their traumatic childhood has connected them in a manner that time and distance can't break … even though one of them more readily identifies "bad men".

Sean Patrick Flanery (Boondock Saints) has an odd, but hyper-energetic small role, but most of the screen time is taken by D'Onofrio, Yelchin and Marquette. A better written role for Ms. Valverde would have been advantageous, but mostly this is a solid little crime drama with an emphasis on brotherly bond.

As "Broken Horses" was drawing to a close, I formulated my review. I had just one sentence: "You could do worse than spend a totally free evening --when there's no cricket, even--watching this movie."

It is just a yarn, spun without imagination, and that yarn isn't substantial enough to be woven into a unique design.

There were a couple of twists and turns, some modicum of suspense, many efforts to get the tear ducts opening, but all through I kept thinking, "This is kind of embarrassing." If the movie theater had been full, I dare say there would have been guffaws at the flat story-telling and the clunky dialogs. That would have amused me.

With movies on familiar themes you want slick treatment, snappy dialog, and a sound-track that tells some of the story without the aid of words. And in this movie where music is a major theme, I really missed the magic an original score and sound-effects can play.

That's it. You aren't likely to go bananas about any aspect of this film, except may be the photography. Having seen this, I am not dying to see "Parinda" either.

The veteran producer-director Vidhu Vinod Chopra ventures into Hollywood and delivers a film that might not be able to impress the west as well as the east due to its overused, stale subject that cinema lovers have seen umpteen times all over the world in various films from the same genre.

No doubt VVC never made BROKEN HORSES for the Indian audience. But since he did release it in India, therefore reviewing it from an Indian perspective the film manages to impress just marginally due to its technical excellence alone, majorly because the viewers here have already seen everything presented in the film earlier in director's own PARINDA released in 1989. In fact it was quite surprising and weird to know that even after 25 years of successful film-making with innovative, creative minds such as Hirani, Aamir and more, VVC still could think of remaking PARINDA only while moving on to Hollywood.

For friends willing to know the details of similarities between PARINDA and BROKEN HORSES, here too we have childhood reference of two kids (Jackie & Anil), heartfelt love of elder brother who joins the crime world, a crazy gangster (Nana Patekar) having an obsession with fire whose family was burnt alive, the younger brother (Anil) returning after a long gap, his audition for entering the gang killing a helping friend (Sameer Kakkar), his revenge from the gangster, the gang rivalry with another mobster (Moosa – Tom Alter), the mobster helping the younger brother, the young one's love affair with a girl (Madhuri), their marriage and first night selected for their killing (where the yacht gets replaced by a ranch) and then the finale with (thankfully) a change where everyone doesn't die like in PARINDA. So the only single difference in the storyline is the missing character of Anupam Kher and a GODFATHER inspired sequence that goes missing in BROKEN HORSES playing it safe.

Looking at these exact similar sequences and the dead slow pace of the film, the film is bound to be rejected by the English film viewers here in India and the fact was pretty clear when I found myself all alone sitting in the theatre in its very first show which was also running after my repeated request made to the theatre manager.

Coming to the western audience, the subject is certainly not new for them too after watching several movies made on the plot of a mole seeking his revenge or related subjects based on gang wars beginning from the classic ON THE WATERFRONT released way back in 1954. Moreover the annoyingly slow place in the beginning and then few shallow sequences like 'the interview' doesn't let you form any great opinion about the film either quite frankly. However the emotional execution of VVC, along with some well directed violent scenes, impressive cinematography, a fine background score and noteworthy production values (all western technicians) are sure to get noticed in Hollywood, coming from an Indian film-maker representing an industry known to be obsessed with music, songs and dances.

In the performances, Christopher G. Marquette takes a big lead as Buddy and does manage to engage the viewer emotionally (he actually saves the movie) whereas Anton Yelchin presents a simple yet honest act as his younger brother becoming the rebel.D'Onofrio trying to be the cunningly ruthless gangster doesn't work really and the same can be said about Sean Patrick Flanery (the music teacher) and Maria Valverde too playing the lady love of Anton.

In short, it was quite hard to understand the reason why Vidhu Vinod Chopra couldn't think of any fresh innovative idea while venturing into Hollywood. Plus after watching the film, it makes you both laugh & wonder together that why he was denying the fact of BROKEN HORSES being an exact version of his PARINDA in all those interviews and press statements before its release? May be he did it on purpose to get a get good initial before the secret was out.

I expected more of this film. Performances offered by Vincent D'Onofrio normally impress me, but this movie is so overwhelmingly bleak, the story so implausible, and the characters -- Buddy, Jakey, and Vittoria aside -- so unlikeable, that even his performance could not save this underwhelming picture. I will say this: the cinematography was amazing. I had a real sense of place the whole time that I watched it in the cinema.

If you can suspend reality and accept the completely implausible premises set up by whoever wrote this mess of a movie, then you may well leave the theatre raving about what an excellent film it is. You may even mumble that the principals involved and the actors featured in it deserve consideration for various prizes. Not me, though. I can accept that it is alright, but I will not be singing its praises anytime soon. I would take a pass on Broken Horses if I were you.