Buckle Brothers

This is a first-time effort by director/writer Marquette Williams. As such, it's not bad, but still looks like an initial effort at documentary making.

The concept and subject are interesting: inner city kids taking to the rodeo instead of the street. But there's not enough of the rodeo culture, almost enough of the personal stories, and almost no view into the "workings" of the competition itself.

There is a heavy reliance on the dialog of the cowboys themselves to explain what's going on, and much of this is hard to understand. More "talking heads" could have been used to describe the industry, the cultural backdrop and the rodeo environment.

It is visceral, though. More than any movie treatment I've seen on the rodeo, you get a tremendous sense of the power, excitement and explosive danger of the bull-riding event.

This is still a good "message" movie, showing an alternative to the gang-banging lifestyle so often celebrated in the popular movie world. It's worth a watch, and worth waiting for Williams' next work.