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movie review

Buck Brannaman in a scene from the documentary "Buck"

The tall and angularly lean body, the pale blue eyes, the laconic yet precise mode of speech, the Stetson with the unadorned brim, the instant rapport between rider and mount, his very name for God's sake – pick any cliché from the cowboy handbook, and Buck Brannaman is its walking-talking embodiment.

But that's precisely what makes this doc so watchable. The clichés should crumble, yet don't; the façade must crack, yet doesn't. So cynics beware: Darned tootin', we're home on the range here, where seldom is heard a discouraging word and don't nobody be yappin' that Buck is too good to be true.

Still, it wasn't always sweetness and sagebrush. The man has known his share of violence. Indeed, although Buck provided the inspiration for The Horse Whisperer, novel and film alike, the facts of his life seem better attuned to less sentimental fiction. He's more of a Cormac McCarthy character, still marked by the scars of his youth but no longer defined by them.

Those scars were inflicted by a common villain. As fresh-faced kids, Buck and his brother were trick-roping prodigies, celebrated enough to appear on national TV shows and the Kellogg Corn Flakes box. They were briefly famous. They were also routinely and "unmercifully" beaten by their abusive father.

Rescue came with the intervention of a concerned teacher and a kindly foster home. There, on a ranch, Buck began to develop a deep affinity for fellow creatures with a shared history of getting broken, whipped and otherwise ridden hard. Horses, of course. Perhaps it's not surprising to learn that "many of the folks who are very good with horses are tortured souls."

As he matured, so did his rapport with the animals, giving rise to a life-long vocation and to the documentary's primary focus – following Buck on his forays across the United States, from the Carolinas to California, parking his pickup at selected stops to offer a four-day clinic in Horsemanship 101.

Whatever the subject, it's always a treat to watch a great teacher at work, and director Cindy Meehl is wise to keep her camera trained on the "round corral." Inside it, Buck's approach to horse-training echoes a pediatrician's to child-raising: "Be gentle but firm" is his mantra, with the crucial proviso that "there's a big difference between firm and hard."

He emphasizes touch and feel, speaking of the animal exactly as elite skiers talk of the mountain or F1 drivers of the car – as an extension of himself, a partner in an ongoing and subtle dance.

Admittedly, even at 89 minutes, all this touching and feeling can start to seem repetitive. Still, there's an undeniable aura about the guy, and his cowboy philosophizing, that keeps us intrigued. Maybe it's the absence of sentimentality, the no-nonsense briskness of remarks like: "Bribery won't work with a horse – it just makes him spoiled and contemptuous."

In fact, as the film's most dramatic segment illustrates, sometimes nothing works with a horse. A problem colt, oxygen-deprived at birth and grown into a mean-minded "predator," proves dangerous and way beyond help – in short, an unsalvageable beast, deaf to the gentlest whispering. For his owner, the tough choice must be made: "I'm gonna have to put him down." Tears are shed, but not by Buck.

Instead, like all the best cowboys, he rides off into the sunset, armed, like all the best teachers, with nothing more than his enduring purpose: "I'm still studying, still learning."

Buck

  • Directed by Cindy Meehl
  • Classification: PG

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