‘How many occasions have you ever damaged your again?” A concerned-looking physician is asking a jockey. It takes him just a few seconds to depend. “Three … I feel.” The physician, it seems, is a vet; the jockey, who’s in his 40s, hasn’t acquired the money for medical therapy so slips the racetrack vet just a few dollars for an X-ray. It’s a scene typical of this macho-sentimental characteristic debut from Clint Bentley, which trots a well-trod narrative: the past-his-peak athlete clutching at one final probability of glory earlier than the knacker’s yard. It’s a film that will get by (after which some) on an intense and targeted efficiency by character actor Clifton Collins Jr, and a truthful-feeling sense of place.
Collins performs the jockey: Jackson Silva is stable and first rate, a person of few phrases and well-respected on the circuit. Racing has taken its toll on his physique: he’s numb down one facet and has acquired the shakes in his crop holding hand. Nonetheless, Jackson is satisfied he’s acquired a few years left in him. He’s labored for a while with coach Ruth (a heat and beneficiant efficiency by Molly Parker), who has simply purchased an distinctive younger thoroughbred. One other film would have required a romance between Jackson and Ruth; however right here the pair solely have eyes for his or her horse. (“She’s like a swan with tooth,” Jackson marvels).
Director Bentley is the son of a jockey and shot the film at a scruffy racetrack in Phoenix, casting real-life jockeys alongside skilled actors. And he actually will get below the pores and skin of this world, its lifestyle, rhythms and textures – although I discovered the subplot involving a younger jockey (Moises Arias) sniffing round asking questions on Jackson a bit predictable. Nonetheless, there’s a superb scene the place jockeys sit round on the finish of the day buying and selling tales of previous accidents like military veterans. It says one thing about Collins’ lived-in efficiency that his lined, creased face suits proper in. He's absolutely entitled to place his years as a personality actor behind him.
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