Last Rodeo
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MOVIE REVIEW
Broke (2025)
“Broke” is worth seeing just to watch Wyatt Russell slump against a wall, or stand next to someone, or hold out his hands to show he’s not a threat. He works with his hands, risks his life for a living and finds his joy in tiny moments of physical perfection. You see a lot of these men in the military or doing the kind of risky heavy work found on a farm. “Broke” reflects this way of moving through a focus on how its people express their feelings through doing instead of talking. It’s a fine story very well shown, not told.
The main issue must be said up front: All the actors are a good decade too old for their parts. But that aside they are cast to perfection: True Brandywine (Mr. Russell) wakes up in a snow-covered field in the American West without a coat or a charged phone and no clear idea of how he got there. His struggle to find shelter is half the story. The other half is the flashbacks which set up how he got to that field in the first place. He is a rodeo rider when he isn’t working on the farm owned by his parents, George (Dennis Quaid) and Kathy (Mary McDonnell), and where he shares a bedroom with his younger brother, Caleb (Johnny Berchtold). He doesn’t talk much; it’s not that he doesn’t have a lot to say but life has taught him no one wants to listen. You can also tell True has never read a book in his life, but he’s the kind of guy who can fix his own car engine in a parking lot. A mild burn leads to an offer of assistance from the passing Ali (Auden Thornton), and the relationship that follows is surprisingly romantic. The problem is George, a man so convinced he knows what’s best for his sons he is crushing their spirits with his good intentions.
All of these considerations are expertly interwoven by writer-director Carlyle Eubank in True’s struggle with the elements so he can somehow return to civilization. Tree branches become improvised snowshoes and the padding slashed out of some carseats are an impromptu cape, enabling him to stay warm while he is on the move. There’s plenty of snow for water at least, but there’s hardly any food and there’s no telling how long he’ll be able to hold out in high country when it’s this cold. The movie was filmed on location in Montana and does not swerve the clichés of modern western life, but Mr. Russell handles the physicality of the role with ease. His experiences as a professional athlete have clearly given him a detailed knowledge of the body’s limits and he knows how to convey the ways True uses this knowledge to keep going. In the modern world there’s always someone happy to sell pills to “dim the lights” as needed, too. But True’s problems (by the way, True Brandywine is one of the best names in recent cinema history) are not just his immediate survival when no one's wondering if he is missing and not even he knows where he is. It’s whether he will be able to build a life on his own terms instead of his father’s.
The 12 credited stunt riders do some beautiful work for Charlie Sarroff’s camera which gets the right balance between the beauty and the danger of nature. The brotherly rapport between Mr. Russell and Mr. Berchtold is a lot of fun, and for once in his career Mr. Quaid doesn’t overplay his part. Ms. Thornton is working with clichés but she does everything possible to give Ali a fighting spirit that is sympathetic to True’s inarticulacy. Tom Skerritt, who turns 91 in August, also has a crucial small part which articulates an entire thesis on choices and responsibilities in maybe five sentences. But this is in every way Mr. Russell’s movie, and he handles it all with ease. It’s a pleasure to see someone understand their character down into their bones.
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