He’s a highly successful Bollywood producer-director with a knack for churning out crackling blockbusters, but Vidhu Vinod Chopra doesn’t display as much finesse when it comes to his first English-language directorial venture, Broken Horses.
Set against the backdrop of crime and drug wars on the US-Mexico border, Broken Horses is a tale of two brothers who cannot escape the clutches of the local mobster Julius (Vincent D’Onofrio). The film opens with Buddy (Chris Marquette), a young boy witnessing the gunning down of his sheriff dad. The distraught boy, whose love for his younger brother Jake knows no bounds, is desperate for revenge and redemption.
Julius swoops down to tailor the impressionable boy as his trigger-happy hit man and Buddy enters the grimy world of crime — all to support his brother. Meanwhile, his brother Jake (Anton Yelchin), is insulated from his sibling’s nasty world and is working towards becoming a professional violinist in Manhattan. He’s all set to marry his beautiful Italian girlfriend (Maria Valverde), but the guilt of abandoning his elder brother spurs him to return to his native town. But the seemingly bro-bonding weekend takes a sinister turn, as Jake unwittingly gets embroiled in the dark world of guns and gory violence.
While the first half progresses at a painfully slow pace, the second half is relatively engaging as their lives careen out of control. Of the two siblings, it’s Jake who’s more convincing. Buddy, the eager boy who has never been introduced to the act of bullying the younger ones in the family, morphs into this big guy who tears up easily at the sight of Jakey. For Buddy, who is not the brightest bulb in the box, his younger brother is his biggest weakness. But he’s in dire need of anger-management classes. So the scene where he pummels a man to death is shocking. Somehow, you don’t feel empathetic towards Buddy or his plight. Life has dealt him a rough hand, so ideally we should be tearing up and rooting for him. But you are left feeling cold. There are instances when Buddy goes overboard with his emotions and facial contortions.
However, the climax is swift and gritty. Director Chopra, who has written and produced Broken Horses, has done a neat job of capturing the barren desert landscape. Watch this if you wish to cheerlead an Indian filmmaker making his first foray into Hollywood.