Search - Cowboy Up on DVD

For Kiefer Sutherland fans only

Steven Hellerstedt | 08/14/2006

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Young Ely Braxton (Marcus Thomas) is an up and coming rodeo bull rider who suffers a movie opening Serious Injury. Brother Hank (Kiefer Sutherland) is the responsible older brother who raises bulls, teaches a zen-ish style of bull riding (`Empty your heart of hate before you ride,' that kind of thing) and is a rodeo clown - the fellow who distracts the bull after its thrown his rider and, reasonably enough from the bull's point of view, wants to crush into pulp the prone body of the thrown rider.

I've kind of made a point of searching out and watching rodeo movies. There aren't a lot of them, and most concentrate on the maverick qualities of the rodeo rider. Always a bull rider, by the way. Most, too, feature some heavy hitters - guys like Steve McQueen and Cliff Robertson - in the lead roles. COWBOY UP is a little different. Bull riding is more of a backdrop here, a setting against which sibling rivalry, a search for a lost father, and some sticky romantic entanglements can be played out. Not that we don't get a LOT of slow-motion shots of mucus draining bulls bucking and snorting and doing their best to toss and trample their tormenters (again, `tormenters' from the bull's point of view.) It's just there's a whole lot more soap than horse in this opera.

Which wouldn't be so bad if the second lead, Marcus Thomas, was a polished actor. Unfortunately his one expression seems to be that of stunned introspection, as thought on the first day of the shoot a crew member had asked him a preposterous question that he couldn't get out of his head. Thomas is talking to a grip, say, on that first day, and the grip wonders out loud whether birds would have to fly if they had opposable thumbs. Thomas guffaws, of course, but every time the studio lights fire up the question returns to gnaw at him, and when he should be `in the moment,' or whatever it is actors say, with movie girlfriend Connie (Molly Ringwald,) instead he's picturing a southbound autumn highway with clusters of hitchhiking ducks.

I'm not sure it matters, anyway. The story's kind of an ill-fitting hybrid to begin with. Things become more complicated later when young Ely hooks up with pretty rodeo horse rider Celia Jones (Daryl Hannah,) brother Hank's old flame, which supplies just enough plot to propel the film to the grand finale. Ely's search for his missing father is resolved, although that search was so unstressed in the movie I didn't even realize it was a Big Issue until it was on me. And, of course, as in almost all rodeo movies, Ely gets to ride the big bull, preferably the one who threw him earlier. In this case the big bull is Zapata, one of brother Hank's bulls, in fact.

I've never been a big fan of Kiefer Sutherland, but he's great in this one. Ringwald, Hannah, and Melinda Dillon - the mother in both `Close Encounters of the Third Kind' and `The Christmas Story' - are wasted as sideline fodder who have little more to do than seduce or wring their hands and hope Ely gets some sense and give up the bull riding. The highlight of the movie for me came when, while Hannah and Thomas were deep in their fling, Ringwald and Sutherland shared a piece of consolation pie at the local diner. Ringwald, inevitably I guess, says to Sutherland, `In a different world you and I would have made a lot more sense.' Hey, Molly - in a different and better movie you and Sutherland would have made a lot more sense, too. COWBOY UP might appeal to hard-core rodeo fans, but the rest of us would be better advised to steer clear of this one.
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Wasted Potential

Nicole S. Porter | 04/01/2005

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This movie could have been so much more than it is. It offers up more wasted potential than an "American Idol" audition.

First, there's the angle of the absent father. While we're thrown some teasers - and even a pseudo-reunion between him and Ely - we are not ultimately emotionally satisfied with the outcome. There's no real resolution, no deep truth.

Then there's the angle of the "love triangle." This never took off, simply because Celia and Hank had no further interaction once she and Ely took up together. And then, Ely parted ways with her entirely. Through all this, Hannah delivers no stunning performance. Her character is fairly two-dimensional at best.

And then there's the "drive to win" that Ely is supposed to evince. This never really appears. We're just supposed to understand how driven he is by his brooding looks and foolhardy acts.

I will give kudos to the slow motion filming sequences in the beginning and the end. They are affective. However, we could've done with a little less bull drool flying through the air like a trapeze act.

All in all, this movie is plagued by wasted potential. The waste of Molly Ringwald's character is especially troubling. Why even introduce her, if she isn't going to play a pivotal role in what happens with Ely and Hank? A lot of this film seeming plodding and pointless.

I wanted to like this movie. I truly did. I'm a whopping huge PBR fan, and desperately wanted to like this movie. However, the movie itself prevented me from doing so.
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