The Rider - Review

The Rider

Based on his own true story, “THE RIDER” stars breakout Brady Jandreau as a once rising star of the rodeo circuit warned that his competition days are over after a tragic riding accident. Back home, Brady finds himself wondering what he has to live for when he can no longer do what gives him a sense of purpose: to ride and compete. In an attempt to regain control of his fate, Brady undertakes a search for new identity and tries to redefine his idea of what it means to be a man in the heartland of America.

REVIEW: I seriously doubt “The Rider” will be nominated for any Oscars next January 2018. But it will be on most films critics Top 10 for 2018. Why? Because it’s a throwback kind of timeless story that can be seen for decades to come asking the eternal question most people in America are confronted with at an early age………”So, what do you want to be when you grow up?. And in the case of “Brady Blackburn” (the films character name) he already knows……”I want to ride horses”. Not just professionally as a local rodeo rider, but to ride them to train, to break them and just for fun. He sleeps, dreams and talks to horse. Brady is so committed to his ambition in life that you wonder if he and horses were somehow symbiotically connected at birth. THEN, imagine for yourself the only thing you ever wanted to do, the only thing you have ever done or will ever want to do in the future is suddenly taken from you? That is the core plot of the story.  

Shot in a documentary style (it is not however) the film is both very intimate and very sentimental about one person having a passion that he eats, breaths and lives with in his consciousness - subconsciousness. THEN the weight of the world comes down to a crashing decision to choosing to ride again or possibly dying doing so. And while the structure of the film captures this question rather effectively it does so in a solemn and stoic manner.

“The Rider” is artful, spiritual, graceful and truthfully. It is also a very quiet film that at times was emotionally moving about having a singular passion in life all of which was visually framed through the beautiful sweeping vista plains of South Dakota. Together theses two pieces added up to a poetic film that some of you will like as much as me and others who will find it a tad slow; lacking anything emotionally stirring to recall. But for me I will always remember young "Mr. Brady Blackburn” who may have been at times a bit naïve, maybe even a little slow intellectually - academically and even lacking broader knowledge about the ways of the world, he will still be remembered as someone who was honest. Honest to those he loved, honest to the horses he trained and honest to himself. 

4.00 Stars