Garth Brooks, a popular singer fifty years ago in 1991, said, “Well, it’s bulls and blood It’s the dust and mud It’s the roar of a Sunday crowd It’s the white in the knuckles The gold in the buckle He’ll win the next go’round.” Back then and now still today, those lyrics were really appealing because they tell a story about a dedicated cowboy. Those lyrics started a particular cowboy lifestyle and still beat in my head where I was listening to “Ride”, a film directed by writer and actor Jake Allyn, for the very first time. We see a battered cowboy who is making his way across a stadium completely past the crowd over to the arena which shows the way song came to life on its own. I hear a swarm of people getting ready to scream, dirt is everywhere even on myself, and blood along with agony is just an ordinary thing.
Allyn radiates with confidence in the role of Peter, an ex convict and bull rider on a parole after spending four years behind bars for motor manslaughter. Peter, himself an addict of alcohol and opiate as well as the rodeo, has his addictions as the basis for the crash that ended a life and also led to his baby sister Virginia (Zia Carlock) being injured. Released from prison by his grandfather Al (Forrie J. Smith) a preacher who used to be a professional rodeo, Peter hasn’t seen his parents, John, always impressive C. Thomas Howell, also a retired rodeo star and farmer and FFA in high school and Monica (Annabeth Gish), a sheriff. Both are having tough times in trying to forgive their son, but then again, the incident resulted in early stage cancer detection in Virginia.
Just as his entire family thought he’d taken too long to come home, Peter struts into town also known as the cowboy capital of the world, Stephenville Texas and the family notices that this time around, Virginia’s cancer is at an advanced stage, costing them about $40000 along with their insurance, to be able to perform the aggressive treatment. Quickly, newly recovered Peter is also back on bull riding anticipating that the money won from the competition may be able to assist, and John ends up selling most of his properties and getting desperate for fast cash.
Despite the crime elements and melodrama that run through the film, they barely take the center stage. At the center of things, says writer and director “Ride” is about people, particularly about men like Peter and John, and their place in the world, today. But it is also attempting to answer what is in real life. What is there to explain when the family with both parents working earns enough to afford everything except the cancer therapy that the daughter needs? John, Peter, Al and the other major characters’ turbulent relationship with the rodeo and bull riding is a well known image of struggle and confrontation. Near the end of the film, Peter admits, “When I’m riding bulls, when that shoot opens, all my pain, all that emptiness, just goes away. For eight seconds, it’s just like all I gotta do is hold on.” With all of the messy chaos that inevitably accompanies bull riding, for someone like Peter, it is just that something messy that can be completed every so often.
This is apparent from his awkward movement as much as it is in his creative construction of the universe. He films at real rodeos so take this on as the rattling of metal gates, the adrenaline of crowds, and country music everywhere Allyn takes you there. Here is a land bathed in the romantic light of fireworks in USA colors and the sharp floodlight. A land where bulls are called Tempest and Twister, rodeo clowns in all their ghastly exuberance, and cowboy hats and teased hair of rodeo queens. Amid such kitsch insanity, the script crafted and Allyn as well as Allyn’s work with the ideals and the warmth of the actors help us keep it real as ever.
As I was about to watch the movie, I had just completed reading the memoir of Louise Brooks in which she states that “a great director keeps the camera close to the actors’ eyes in every crucial moment”, recalling G. W. Pabst saying to her the audience must “see it in the actors’ eyes”. This is something that Allyn, an actor who is now directing, understands well without the need for an explanation. He never takes his bright camera away from C. Thomas Howell during one of the most heart breaking moments of the film when his character John is told his little daughter has cancer. To begin with, he takes a long look at his daughter who is dying and lying in her hospital bed. Next, he looks at the doctor who patiently explains that her expensive oncology hospital has a place for a girl who looks as if she should be backed out to a chalk board. It is all evident in his eyes. The helplessness of the situation the life of his daughter is at risk. The anger at the absurdities of contemporary medicine. The panic about how anyone will pay for this miraculous new procedure. All of these traumatic emotions are present in his gaze in an outstanding manner.
His rib is fractured and the pain is excruciating, but he still has one last bull left to ride. Al urges him to cowboy up. As the pill unfolds into the vison in Peters eyes, it becomes clear that his ride is endless, just as every bull has its rodeo, where one becomes incomparably loaded with tasks. Allyn sees Peter as one who is in the clouds. The apparition of a woman whose life he cut short for no rhyme or reason. The spirit of the relatives that have cut all ties with him, the spirit of his old self. The ghosts themselves are an Umbra which drags him into an eternal darkness, and you can literally never see his mouth half turned up. He is always slouching like a tenchow.
Ride works best as far as its concerned with the archetypal family problems of Peter, John and Al who are three generations beneath roped horse wrestlers who perhaps play bulls on an yesteryear. Peter’s melancholy is about melancholy himself trying to fit his family into the pattern of bull riders from yesteryears. John has unwillingly come to rely on welfare assistance to fund his daughter’s healthcare costs but has no qualms making the same enemy of the state to save his family. Al endorses full self denial and reckless love for both.
Not all of the various characters featured in the film have their roles as well integrated built into the tapestry of the film. Sheriff Monica is mostly underplayed, although a scene where she pours coffee too hot for her fingers tells you something about her complicated state of mind, and in one more sit through the thanks of the third act reveal goes back to play in the troubling world of masculine domain with the boys. The glimpses of Peter’s other sibling, Noah (Josh Plasse) her girlfriend Libby (Laci Kaye Booth), were a treat because they add color and texture to the society of Stephenville and the mundane people residing there, and I wish we hadn’t spent more time with Peter’s baby sister Virginia instead.
“Ride” is a film packed with plots, themes, characters even ideas but it succeeds because it has the kind of passion that can only come from a director whose film has to be made and shot on film at that very moment finally has to be made or she’ll explode.
For more movies like Ride visit 123Movies.