You might think of Robert Redford as the Horse Whisperer. But Buck Brannaman is the real thing. In the documentary “Buck,” which premiered at Redford’s Sundance film festival, the inspiration behind the 1995 novel and 1998 film presents his method of working with horses himself. He’s no Redford, of course, but has a charm of his own, this quiet man whose childhood abuse led him to a special understanding of hurt animals.
Buck holds a couple Guinness Book of World Records for his roping skills. His father forced him and his brother to practice rope tricks — unless they wanted a beating. His own pain made him consider that animal troubles could be laid down to the way they’ve been treated in the past. “I’m helping horses with people problems,” he explains. Most of the year, he spends his days traveling the country, teaching his philosophy to others through workshops in which he gets them to think of horses as creatures to be persuaded, not broken down.
| On screen |
| ‘Buck’ |
| 3 out of 5 stars |
| Stars: Buck Brannaman |
| Directors: Cindy Meehl |
| Rated: R for thematic elements, mild language, and an injury |
| Running time: 88 minutes |
“God had him in mind when he invented cowboys,” Redford says, and Buck is certainly in the best of the breed. But like anyone with a strong opinion, he sometimes has trouble fitting the facts into his theory. At the end of the film, he must deal with a particularly difficult animal, one that seems immune to his method. And when his students try his tricks on their own horses, they don’t always succeed. Buck blames them, not the horse, not the teaching.
There’s something to his ideas, though. You can tell just by watching the way Buck handles an animal, and the film is mostly made up of such scenes. No, a young Scarlett Johansson doesn’t make an appearance in “Buck,” as she did in “The Horse Whisperer.” But Buck, the man and the movie, are that rare thing, the real deal.
