Plot Summary
When Cassie Roberts receives word that her father is having medical complications, she is forced to return to the small town of Texas she grew up in, the one she tried to get away from. While back in town, she is reminded of her horse riding days and reluctantly agrees to help her father and his young trainer to train her old horse for a reining competition. Will she be reminded of what she left behind and of the new life she can start anew?
Production Quality (1.5 points)
While Texas Rein has good standard production elements, including video quality, camera work, and audio quality, there are still some other issues to raise. The soundtrack is very stock and uninspiring. The sets and locations are quite limited to a few houses and outside areas and don’t even give off that small town feel. Finally, the editing is quite poor and causes the film to be very choppy and confusing—just a collection of random scenes. There are also too many musical montages. In short, while this movie looks good on the surface, it’s really just an average production.
Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)
So a character returns to their hometown they don’t want to be in because of some extenuating circumstance and finds a reason to stay (usually a horse is involved) and meets a significant other and so on and so forth. We’ve seen this plot before and this is a 2016 movie, so why are we seeing it again? Besides the predictable plot structure, the characters therein are extremely juvenile and simplistic. The dialogue is typical and full of small town statements. Nothing really substantial happens as the passage of time is hard to follow. We can’t feel like these people are real or are doing real things as their unrealistic high school dramas are resolved too easily. Basically, there’s really nothing good to say here.
Acting Quality (.5 point)
This is really a very poor casting job. The actors and actresses are awkward, wooden, and robotic in their line delivery. They don’t express any believable feeling or emotions. On the bright side, this is possibly Erin Bethea’s best role to date. But otherwise, this is a big disappointment.
Conclusion
It’s great to want to make a movie, but sometimes you need to take a step back and see if it really is worth marking. Texas Rein probably would have done better as a short film, to work as sort of a springboard for better things. With no creative plot content and very weak characters, this was unfortunately not a story worth telling. Also, it’s great to have production elements down, but having such a poorly coached cast is unacceptable. Perhaps things will improve in the future.
Final Rating: 2 out of 10 points
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