COWBOY JUNKIE
A one-word title for a movie, depressing, country-fried, distorted in its look just like its main persona. Yeah I'm talking about 2025's Broke, a character study to be interpreted by any viewer or any interested cinephile, in any sort of way they want to do it. Um, is Wyatt Russell's True Brandywine dead? Does he have brain damage? And is True rodeo's version of NFL center Mike Webster from good old Steeler Nation? "Nothing and nobody can make me feel as alive as I do when I'm on the back of that horse for 8 seconds." Ride 'em cowboy True, ride 'em.
So OK, there's a twangy soundtrack, some dust, lots of glacial snow, "big sky", and a little blood, sweat, and tears with Broke. Basically the flick is Wind River meets The Grey, the neutered version. You want bleak, arid cinematography of The Treasure State and its various municipalities? Broke will give it to ya. You want flashbacks up the yin yang with a little psychedelia to boot? Again Broke will give it to ya. You want an abrupt ending with enough dangling, loose plot threads to power a small country? I didn't but that's Broke's unfortunate shortcomings. "So, what's your plan?" Uh, exactly boss, exactly.
Produced by Vince Vaughn from his Wild West Picture Show Productions and directed by a rookie in Massachusetts native Carlyle Eubank, Broke is about a buckaroo named True Brandywine (mentioned earlier) who can't seem to shake the feeling of bronc riding despite being steadily maimed with traumatic injuries. Wyatt Russell (son of Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell) channels True and he's the biggest reason to see Broke, what with all his raw, physical acting, his ardor for pain, and his withering screen presence. Other actors (veterans Dennis Quaid, Tom Skerritt, and Mary McDonnell) fade in and out but this is Russell's harrowing, one-man show. You take him out of Broke and the film might need some serious "fixin". Natch.
Written by Jesse Burleson