Buck (2011)

“Buck” follows the man behind “The Horse Whisperer,” the 1995 book and 1998 Robert Redford film about a kind cowboy who tames a wild horse and therefore saves its owner, a wounded girl. The real Horse Whisperer is Dan “Buck” Brannaman, a former rodeo child star who found solace and salvation in horses after a life of hellish abuse. We follow family, horse owners, trailers and farms, but director Cindy Meehl makes it clear, this is about anyone’s life, even Philly boy, and taps into raising children, holding a marriage together, and reaching out to others. It’s not all sweetness. Just as the film turns Buck into a Zen Jedi Magic Man, he meets a troubled horse he cannot save, one that – in a jolt of shocking violence – nearly rips a man’s face off. The gush of blood is real. Buck is heartbroken. I could have saved him, he says. Old film of the dad with Buck is an unsettling peak at child abuse, the old man’s claws dug into the boy’s wee shoulder. A jolt to anyone who knows what that means. Maybe Buck is a Zen Jedi Magic Man. A-