Movie Review: Unbranded

Title: Unbranded
Author: N/A
Release Date: 2015
Genre: animals, wild west, friendship, travel, true story
My Rating: ** (not because it wasn't any good, but because it barely kept my interest)
Official Rating: PG-13
Age Group: 12+

Summary
Just out of college, four buddies sharing a passion for horses, decide to do something crazy to make a point. Mustangs are great horses, they insisted. So they decided to prove it by taking sixteen mustangs (and a donkey, to spice up the unit's appearance) from border to border. That's right, Mexico to Canada. Just four guys and their wild horses. All the way across the country.

Word of Warning

•  Swearing. At least a few uses of f*** and s***, as well as others I did not write down.
• Horses get hurt. Nothing graphic. A few get leg injuries. One tumbles down a hill, getting a few scrapes.
• A dead horse is shown. They guys look in its mouth, can't find the cause of death, and cut off the tail. It's disturbing to know this isn't staged, it's a real dead horse.
• The guys fight. No blows, but lots of angry shouting and plenty of swearing.
• Guys talk about getting drunk.
• Mention of suffering and starving horses eating dead horses, foul trying to nurse from a dead mother.
• This isn't really a bad thing, but it is something to be aware of. To break up the traveling, experts from the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) discusses the measures being taken to keep wild mustangs populations under control. They do give screen time to people who disagree with the BLM, but using arguments they basically paint those in disagreement as wrong.

My Thoughts
I watched it because a rather skilled horseback rider told me it was a good movie and she enjoyed it. And I figured that if she liked it, experiencing what she's experienced, knowing what she knows, then it had to be realistic and good.
And it was. I think. I don't know enough in the area to be sure if it was, but it sure looked like it. I learned a lot. It was interesting.

So why the two stars? Because it was boring. Because it took me three days, not consecutive days, to finish this movie, and the last hour was finished after a long exhausting day. Also because one of the guys on the trip really annoyed me for some reason, and he was the leader. He controlled everything and lost it when others wanted to throw a little something into the journey. He had these goals he was determined to meet, but unfortunately the goals required the others to do exactly what he had planned for them to do, and when they didn't, it didn't go over well.
And as pathetic as it sounds, that, added to the lack of hook, made it hard to enjoy the movie more than two stars.

It's not a bad movie. It just wasn't a super good movie. It was an ok movie.