Ride (now streaming on Paramount+) has enough Texas toughskins and Big Mustache Energy to fill a dozen dusty rodeo rings. The film is a passion project for co-writer, co-star and first-time director Jake Allyn, who grew up in the thick of Lone Star State cowboy culture, and cast himself alongside two real-life rodeo cowboys-turned-actors in 1980s star C. Thomas Howell and Yellowstone’s Forrie J. Smith. So there’s no shortage of authenticity and grit in this melodrama about three generations of troubled bullriders just trying to get through a dark period of their lives.
RIDE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: And boy, is this one hell of a dark dark period. We meet John Hawkins (Howell) as he finds himself in a surreal dream in which his return to rodeo-ring glory is interrupted by the sudden appearance of his 11-year-old daughter Virginia (Zia Carlock). He awakens in Virginia’s bed, cradling a whisky bottle and her beloved stuffed unicorn. The kid isn’t there – she’s in the hospital, and her planned homecoming is waylaid by the awful news that doctors found more cancerous tumors, and she needs treatment at a facility that demands $40,000 up front before she can walk through the door. The Hawkins family is of course crestfallen: Mom Monica (Annabeth Gish), who’s also the sheriff in their “cowboy capital” town of Stephenville, Texas. Her older brother Noah (Josh Plasse). Her bowlegged horse-wrangling grandfather Al (Smith). And her oldest brother Pete (Allyn), who doesn’t even know she has cancer, because he’s estranged from the family and just getting out of jail for a drunk driving accident that killed a woman.
So it’s Grandpa Al who picks up Pete and drops him at a nearby ranch where he’ll live and work. Pete’s six months sober – Al is his AA sponsor – but that won’t last long at all. He drops by local dealer Tyler’s (Patrick Murney) place for a few bottles of oxy, which he promises to pay for after he wins $10k in the next rodeo. Tyler chuckles and hands over the pills, then whoops it up after Pete guts out a victory through a nasty rib injury. Meanwhile, John does whatever he can to scrape up the cash for Virginia’s treatment, and it’s going poorly. He sells some horses, tries to refinance the ranch, angles for an early cash-in on his pension for teaching high school farming classes. Pete catches wind of their predicament, and instead of using his winnings to pay off the scummy drug dealer, he leaves the $10k on the front porch for his dad to find it. Pete’s angry angry angry angry angry about everything, but he loves his sister dearly.
John sets the tone for the Hawkins family by being a hide-your-feelings tough guy, but that sack can only hold so many cats before it overflows. There’s so much going on with Virginia’s ailment, his financial hardship and the quietly bubbling strife between him and Monica, the guy’s going to have to let something spill out from beneath his salt-and-pepper mustache. It starts via a confrontation with Pete – John doesn’t trust where Pete got the money, so he tries to give it back, which eventually leads to a couple of ugly encounters with Tyler. Decisions get increasingly desperate. Tensions ratchet up. Dams burst, which feels necessary – but is that a good thing?
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Ride is like Chloe Zhao’s The Rider as directed by Scott Cooper or Taylor Sheridan.
Performance Worth Watching: Allyn’s wisest move was to cast old pros like Howell, Gish and Smith to hold down the fort dramatically, and work hard to give the somewhat cliched material the agency it needs.
Memorable Dialogue: Some top-flight cowboyspeak right here:
Al: You’re wobblier than a two-peckered billy goat!
Pete, echoing the audience’s feelings: I don’t even know what that means.
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: Ride gives one the sense that Allyn willed the film into functionality, inspiring himself and his cast to give everything they’ve got to a screenplay tumescent with earnest cliches. Howell, Allyn, Gish and Smith dig deep to give their characters emotional credibility, and Allyn directs with a robust hand, tautly sustaining suspense during key sequences and slashing through the masculine bravado of his rodeo toughs with LENS FLARE refracting from harsh stadium lights. The pressure’s on these people, and we can’t help but feel it.
Thematically, the film touches heaps of melodramatic subject matter. It trafficks in ideas ranging from addiction to the existential threat of cancer, trauma, loss, a morally bankrupt healthcare system, waylaid dreams, the pains of redemption, generational macho bullshit and a hint of infidelity, all of which threaten to tear the Hawkinses apart. How much can one family suffer before our suspension of disbelief tumbles to the ground? Allyn, co-writing with Plasse, takes a no-situation-is-so-bad-that-it-can’t-get-worse tack, ramping up the intensity unto straight-up misery, although the film stops just short of wallowing in its own hopelessness.
So Ride borders on being A Bit Much, especially during a third act that feels manufactured to amplify conflict (and feels like a bridge too far past realism when certain sheriff characters ignore blatant conflicts of interest in their criminal investigations). But there’s no debating the film’s noble aims for authenticity, which keeps us grounded in the moment. It’s as if Allyn inspired the full commitment of his cast by loading their panties with gravel before turning on the camera, so they’re always aware of the GRIT. Whatever the director did to set the tone and instill the mindset, it worked, and the movie is better for it.
Our Call: Rodeo is almost as cliched a movie metaphor for life as boxing – you get thrown off the bull or take a few punches, whatever, you still need to get up and find your footing again. But Allyn makes it feel less like a phony fortune-cookieism with the admirably sturdy Ride. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
