Marginalized people.  Even the best of us, whoever they are, will denigrate those they deem to be different, which is another way of saying inferior.  It has happened throughout history and it continues to happen today, even in the United States.  Faith clearly teaches that we should not treat others in this manner, regardless of who they are.  On August 10^th, the Church celebrates the feast of St. Lawrence, a deacon of early Catholicism.  In the third century, during one of the many persecutions of early Christians, he was ordered by the Romans to turn over whatever wealth the Church had garnered in its brief existence.  His response was to show the officials the poor and sick, marginalized people in other words.  St. Lawrence was eventually martyred for his actions.  Other Christians were imprisoned and tortured.  No matter their condition, such people are close to God and, as such, have dignity.  When placed in those conditions, it is hard to see their worth, not only for those outside of jail but for the ones on the inside.  Think about these things as you read this review of The Mustang (2019).

If you read a title like The Mustang, if you first do not think about cars, your next guess might be horses.  These four-legged creatures are part of the story, and they initiate the proceedings with shots of wild herds of the title variant roaming the open spaces of the American West.  As explained in a pre-script, groups of these steeds are rounded up by helicopter and given to the prison system to be broken and auctioned once properly trained.  The people who do this work are inmates of the department of corrections.  Not yet a part of this program is Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts).  We later learn that the reason for his predicament is because he had beat up his girlfriend and the mother of his daughter, Martha Coleman (Gideon Adlon).  Though this fit of domestic violence did not kill his girlfriend, it left a young Martha to care for a brain damaged mother.  Because of this incident, when he is interviewed by the prison psychologist (Connie Britton), among the sparse words he gives her is that he is a bad person.  Specifically, she is there to assess Roman’s fitness to be put back in with the general population.  He does not think this is a good idea, so he is given one of the special jobs at the facility: the care of the wild horses.  Doing so involves, at least on his first day, shoveling the manure produced by the animals, a chore on which he is not keen.  Its distasteful effects are experienced when his new roommate, white supremacist Dan (Josh Stewart), comments on Roman’s stench.  Another person who thinks Roman stinks, metaphorically anyway, is Martha.  She comes to visit her father to have him sign papers to be legally emancipated from him.  After affixing his name, he tells her to never return.  While out in the horse pens, one of the creatures attracts Roman’s attention, one eventually named Marcus.  Being newly captured, Marcus is not enjoying being caged, constantly banging against the side of the corral.  At one point, the person in charge of the inmate horse program, Myles (Bruce Dern), notices Roman watching Marcus.  Myles sees a connection between Roman and Marcus and names Roman a trainer, to the prisoner’s surprise.  Actually, at first, it is more like resistance.  He ignores the advice of Henry Cooper (Jason Mitchell), one of Roman’s fellow incarcerated who has been doing this job for some time.  Nonetheless, of course Roman picks Marcus to train, who remains stubbornly wild as Roman’s patience wanes.  At one point, Roman begins punching Marcus in a vain attempt to tame the seemingly untamable.  Immediately, animal and man are taken down, and Roman spends the next few days in solitary confinement.  What brings him out of this small cell is an approaching storm and the need to get all available help to bring the horses to safety.  As you might expect, Roman goes to Marcus, managing to get a rope around the pony and lead it to a secure structure.  For his service, Myles reinstates Roman to the training program.  The experience also convinces Roman to open up more to others, even if it is not always in a healthy way.  An example of the unhealthy behavior is helping Dan obtain drugs, which Roman observes Henry stealing from the equestrian veterinary clinic.  Roman doing so means that Dan no longer has to rely on Henry, who is eventually shivved by the racist convict and dies.  On a more positive note, the classes on anger management Roman takes with the psychologist show him the necessity to make amends where possible.  This means with Martha, who Roman had gotten angry with when she tried to tell him that she was going to sell his mother’s home so she can move away with her boyfriend, with whom she is pregnant.  Despite a heartfelt apology and explanation of what happened the night he was arrested, she is still upset.  He invites her to the auction all the same, wanting to show her that he is different.  During the show, he keeps looking for her in the crowd of potential bidders, and is increasingly stressed when he does not see her.  He is not the only one on edge.  After getting off to a great start, a helicopter circling overhead spooks Marcus, causing him to throw his rider and attack.  Roman makes it out alive, but the next day he visits Myles, who has bad news: the training program is being terminated and they are coming to put down Marcus.  Instead, exploiting a weak spot in the fence pointed out by Myles, Roman takes Marcus and frees the horse.  We close with Roman reading a letter from Martha and seeing Marcus outside the prison fences.

The basic message of The Mustang is that no cage can tame a wild horse.  At first, we are made to believe that it is Roman who fits this description.  After all, he tells the psychologist as much at the beginning, and is prone to angry outbursts.  With Marcus, we are led to believe that, as with others like him, becoming domesticated is only a matter of patience and time.  It appears to work for a little while, but there remains a spirit within the horse yearning to be free.  Though the Church would not subscribe to such an idea for an animal, it would agree with it for people in prison.  Such is why She teaches that those behind bars have dignity.  Further, to visit somebody in this kind of situation is a corporal act of mercy.  When Martha does this for Roman, he reacts angrily because he does not want to experience the hope she brings.  This is attested to in the letter he reads from her at the end in which she mentions her belief that he wants to stay incarcerated.  Between that and him in the beginning not saying that he wants to be released speaks to an awareness of his sinfulness.  There is an interesting discussion about this with the psychologist during the anger management course.  She goes around the room asking the inmates how long it took between thinking of doing the crime and actually committing it.  They all say it was a matter of seconds.  And that is all it takes to sin.  Some of this can be put down to our inclination towards sin, called concupiscence.  However, moments like the one in the class demonstrate that God gives us the ability to fight those predilections.  We cannot do it alone.  Sometimes, it takes working with somebody just as frightened as us, like Marcus, to show us that we are not alone.  God is there for us.

I hope I am not alone in thinking that The Mustang is a good movie.  Actually, I know I am not because it has gotten wide acclaim since its premier at the Sundance Film Festival.  If any of what I have written interests you, it is currently available on Netflix.