A good movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Matthias Schoenaerts, I was quite eager to check it out. I was actually wondering how Schoenaerts, a Belgian actor, did end up playing a character who could have been played by countless US actors. Eventually,  the main reason was probably that this movie was directed by a French woman who, liked me, must have been familiar with Schoenaerts’s career. Anyway, beside the casting, I did appreciate the parallels between this inmate and this horse who were basically both locked in a cage with nothing left than their rage against the rest of the world. Indeed, there was definitely something beautiful about these two wild beings somehow bonding with each other. However, I think they really pushed it by making the main character becoming seriously mellow after working with this horse. Maybe they should have slightly toned down the positive impact of this experiment but, still, there is no doubt that it is a much more positive way to handle prisoners and I’m sure it must be really therapeutic for them. On top of that, once again, Matthias Schoenaerts delivered here another intense performance. In my opinion, he is actually one of the very few actors who manages to be really charismatic but at the same time still feels completely authentic. To be honest, the other sub-plots, especially the one involving some Ketamine traffic in the prison, were all rather half-baked but as long they focused on this man and his horse, it worked just fine. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was probably not a masterpiece, it was still a solid watch and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Matthias Schoenaerts’s work.