The Mustang Takes Its Horse To Self-Improvement Road And Rides Until It Can't No More

When we start The Mustang, Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts) is a prisoner who has thrown himself into the shackles of isolated solitude. He doesn't talk to anyone, not even his daughter on the rare times she comes to visit him, and he's basically accepted, in his own way, the idea that the rest of his life is doomed to this miserable solitary existence. While off on a chore consisting of shoveling horse fecal matter, Roman Coleman comes across a wily mustang horse that's apparently impossible to train. Stumbling upon this horse leads Roman to discover a group at this prison consisting of prisoners, under the watchful eye of Myles (Bruce Dern), learning how to train horses as a form of personal rehabilitation.

I Can Handle The Nastiness In Brawl In Cell Block 99 But Did It Have To Be So Meandering?

Brawl In Cell Block 99 is a grimy nasty movie, one that finds human beings as simply vehicles to experiment new forms of torment on and I can guarantee you that the features writer/director S. Craig Zahler would take that as a major compliment. He's made a film that's just stacked with depravity, which isn't a bad thing at all inherently, there are movies I absolutely love that are way more grim than this prison-set action film (Au Hasard Balthazar would eat this thing up for breakfast and then go back for seconds). But could it at least be depraved in an interesting way? Could its warped worldview manifest in ways that are actually entertaining instead of frequently meandering?