The Mustang

From a narrative perspective, there's nothing you haven't seen done before, but it's very well-made and genuinely moving

Some states have been trying to reduce their recidivism rates through animal training programs. One such program, the Wild Horse Inmate Program (WHIP), is based in Florence, Arizona, a state that spends over $25,000 per inmate per year. Developed in the 1980s in Colorado, WHIP has expanded across the western United States [...] Of the 50 inmate graduates of the program, only two returned to prison, a desistance rate of 96%. In other areas, such as New Mexico, th__e recidivism rate in the past for prisons offering animal training programs was 25% as compared to the state average of 38%.

• "Saddling Horses Can Tame Recidivism and Rein Spending" (Emily Tap); Economics21 (May 18, 2018)

There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.

• Winston Churchill

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.

• W.C. Fields

How strange a thing it is that so huge and powerful and intelligent an animal as a horse should allow another, and far more feeble animal, to ride upon his back.

• Peter Gray

The pitch for The Mustang is about as hackneyed as it gets – a dangerous convict who hits out at everything and everyone is given a shot at redemption by working with a dangerous horse who hits out at everything and everyone, and as the man starts to tame the animal, the animal starts to tame the man. So far, so Hallmark Channel movie of the week; a story so familiar, it seems impossible it could communicate anything of value or interest. Except, despite its derivative underpinnings, The Mustang has been made with such craft that it transcends the clichés and works exceptionally well on its own terms, concluding with a scene that should be melodramatically insincere and manipulative, but which instead taps into some unexpectedly genuine emotion. Tonal...