DNA (April 14, 2015)

Enlarge Image Broken Horses was touted to be Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s big ticket to Hollywood. When James Cameron called it an “artistic triumph made with love” even before the world had seen a frame of it, one was expecting something special. However, now with the film’s release, Cameron seems to find himself in a spot. The movie has been panned across the Hollywood media. And though Chopra’s PR back home is trying to salvage the damage, the film is struggling to cope with the most scathing criticism Chopra has faced in his career.

While review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave it a ‘Rotten’ rating with the film scoring a paltry 23 per cent, the words of Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter says it like it is: “According to its publicity materials, filmmakers James Cameron and Alfonso Cuaron have described Broken Horses as ‘an artistic triumph’ and ‘overwhelming’ respectively. It only serves to demonstrate that of the many prodigious talents these esteemed directors possess, film criticism isn’t among them.’

Stephen Whitty for New York Daily News says, “Inside some bad movies, there’s a good one, fighting to get out. Inside Broken Horses there’s just another bad movie.” In one reference to the film, he even uses the term, ‘Lousy idea.’

Ben Kenigsberg of Variety adds, “This contemporary Western might as well be set in the Twilight Zone.” The other terms he uses in his review about the film include ‘absurdities’, ‘bad laughs’, ‘heightened melodrama’ and ‘glaringly fake.’

Frank Scheck of the Hollywood Reporter says in his review, “Vidhu Vinod Chopra makes a highly uneasy transition to American films with this weirdly baroque modern-day Western that, while it boasts undeniably imaginative visual and plot flourishes, is far too absurd to take seriously.”

The New York Times reviewer Nicolas Rapold calls it a ‘deeply silly drama’. He adds, “Mr. Chopra says his well-liked fraternal drama Parinda inspired this film, but something happened on the way to Broken Horses, which makes a risibly sentimental refrain of Buddy’s (one of the film’s protagonists) expression of excitement: ‘I’ll go bananas. Bananas!’”

Mike D’Angelo of AV Club says, “This wan crime drama plays like the equivalent of a Hindi novel that’s been run through Google Translate..”

Michael Phillips of Chicago Tribune states, “There are secrets and revelations in Broken Horses, none of them revealing...The expression on Yelchin’s face suggests a man coming to the realisation that his film is not working.”

Craig J Clark from The Dissolve Lead calls the film ‘predictable when it isn’t threatening to go off the rails... Broken Horses lays on the heavy-handed symbolism so thick every action is freighted with significance that the flimsy cardboard cutouts populating it can’t support.’