Someone Else Liked It, Too?

I don't follow movies, so when I happen to watch something and think "That was really good" or intriguing or unique or whatever, I tend to Google it to find out more. Then I see how others mostly trashed it.

Forget rodeo in "The Rider". Most of the horse scenes aren't about bucking broncos.

So, imagine my shock when I watched "The Rider" this afternoon, was rather amazed, and Googled it. Whoa! Pretty much everybody else in the world thought it was a good movie, too!

I was stunned, as I watched, that a lot of horse-training scenes with skittish horses was done by the star actor. We see his face -- he's not a stunt man. Turns out, rather than being a movie where actors are playing cowboys, almost all the parts are real life cowboys playing at being actors. It views as a movie, but has the foundation of a real life documentary -- yet, with few spoken words.

If you love horses, but don't care for rodeo -- don't worry. Even though the plot is about a permanently injured rodeo rider trying to figure out what to do with his life, the rodeo scenes are all distant. The close-up equine scenes concern regular riding horses, or horses being trained to be riding horses. The star rider/actor is a genuine real-life horse trainer with relatively gentle, patient methods. Unlike most cowboy-style horse yarns, he doesn't treat horses as senseless brutes that need to be conquered to prove he's a man.

"The Rider" was just plain the most uniquely-presented movie I've seen in recent memory. All the horse stuff was a lovely bonus.