Hank Braxton (Kiefer Sutherland) is an experienced rodeo clown and former bullrider. His younger brother Ely Braxton (Marcus Thomas) gets injured on a ride. He recovers and together with his brother slowly becomes a rising star. Their champion bull riding father Reid Braxton (Pete Postlethwaite) is a hard man and often fought with their mother Rose Braxton (Melinda Dillon). Ely fights with girlfriend Connie (Molly Ringwald) about his bull riding. Celia Jones (Daryl Hannah) is a barrel racer on the circuit that Hank falls in love for. However along with Ely's success comes the affections of Celia. Hank is jealous. The relationship eventually ends. Ely is set to ride Hank's bull, the unrideable Zapata. Hank gives Ely the address to their father to ease his mind. Ely meets his father but it isn't what he expected.This is filled with a lot of rodeo family melodrama. There is just too much. The story overflows. After awhile, this feels like a bad cowboy soap. It needs to simplify a little on something. I think the girl trouble could be cut out and simply make this movie about daddy issues. Also I don't think Marcus Thomas has enough charisma. He is certainly outmatched by Kiefer.

Spoilers hereinThe losers are only a few: the writer and Daryl Hannah. Daryl because she should be working at more challenging parts right now. Regarding the script, you can smell a Redford a mile away: cloying sentimentality, mechanical plot evolution, subconscious conflation of nature with goodness and freedom. This script is really bad: one can see the remnants of the formula: switching lovers mirrored by switching destinies. The curse of emotionally jailed parents. The challenge. The balance of victory and defeat. The nature-specific enlightenment at the end. Please advise this kid to go into another line or to radically reinvent himself.The winners are enough to keep this from being a waste. Most of the actors are strong enough to put something where the writer did not. Postlethwaite has one real scene and is memorable. Really. Sutherland and Dillon show they are better than the material. But the one that fascinates me is Molly Ringwald. She debuted in a quirky, actorly adaptation of `the Tempest' with Susan Sarandon and Raul Julia. She did a Godard free-style adaptation of `King Lear' with Woody Allen! In between, she had the unfortunate success of some cheap personality roles. Since then, she's been cruising. Will she come back from the dead? I see she is signed up for Greenaway's next project, `Luper.' He is the most intelligent mind in film today, so that seems promising.But here, she is background. A shame I say.Another winner: the sound designer. This has great sound. Fortunately they didn't lard it up with honk-a-glitz so far as the songs -- but the sound is what impressed me.Ted's evaluation: 2 of 4 -- has some interesting elements.

This movie is absolutely terrible. Even with a Redford, a Hannah, a Sutherland, and an incredibly knowledgeable bullriding instructor, this movie failed to deliver in story, plot, and reality.The main character is utterly unlikeable and many of his surrounding characters are so shallowly written that normally good actors can muster up, at best, USA movie of the week caliber performances. The writer did absolutely nothing to deepen the characters and as a result, the viewer knows nothing about Ely and could care less if he wins or loses.On top of that *SPOILERS AHEAD* The logistical details of teh rodeo life are pure fiction. He goes from riding PRCA to suddenly winning the PBR finals. He shows up for a rodeo with no intent to ride and is allowed on a bull at teh last minute, and many other things that a person with even a layman's grasp of rodeo would identify as pure fantasy. Even the tragic death at the end was so rushed and confused that I did not register any emotion. That and the ending made no sense what so ever. I'm sure he was trying to make some dramatic point about the sanctity of life, but at that point I was too bored to care.

This is an interesting movie--with some casting problems. We find that there is a lot more to riding a bull than just being big or tough. Kiefer's character (brother to the lead) expands the stereotypical cowboy role because he is a sensitive, yet confident, thinking mans cowboy; full of compassion and depth. Molly Ringwald is waisted on a weak script. She plays a women who is supposedly a great catch but she has no patience, understanding, or sex appeal and is a poor listener. In addition, she looks at least 5 years older than Ely (her boyfriend). What do they have in common? What in the world was the attraction for these two people? In fact, all of the women's roles are written politically correct or safe and are therefore drab, boring, and unrealistic (they're too perfect). We never find out what Ms. perfect mom saw in the completely dysfunctional dad. It's hard to believe she could stand him long enough to have two kids . . . the movie shows that he had no redeeming qualities--whatsoever. Daryl Hannah is a fine actress but to long in the tooth to play the love interest of a man (Kiefer) nearly 2 inches shorter and 7 years younger than she is. Conversely, it's encouraging to see men and women closer in appearance and age--but this pair up just doesn't work--in the scene in the cafe Hannah looks old enough to be Ely's mom--which makes a later scene highly unlikely. All in all a good TV movie but comes up short when compared to other quality big screen cowboy fair like Urban Cowboy, The Electric Horseman, or The Grey Fox.I'll give it 3 out of 5 stars.