Mustang Country (1976)

You won't be disappointed!

Let's be realistic.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I had accidentally seen this movie at about the same time of the day--very early morning getting ready to run all day errands and dreading it.I owned horses for many years and know when a man is riding and when he is just filling the saddle. McCrea used to RIDE and in a few scenes here he did it again. My dad's entire male family broke horses for a living. Ironically that the money they earned made enough money for my dad to have the first student owned car at his high school in Nebraska. He knew things about horses in his late seventies that it makes me wonder just how much he knew in his prime. This movie takes me back to those days. Simplicity and horse people. Beauty, slow speed and with a simple plot it can't hurt to watch it. When I saw how everyone in the movie had aged I thought about how good I look now look at age 62. Then I saw the year this film was made. 1976! I graduated High School and was in college at that time!!!.I included the parts about myself because that is what this film brought up. IF you are a horse person--you will enjoy it. IF you are looking for the typical Western--you will be disappointed. This film brings back memories of Mcrae's skill as a movie star. He was still good. Pat Wayne and the Ken Doll-- Fuller were there taking up film. Sorry-- was never too fond of their work. WJ

After watching Mustang Country, I'm convinced that Joel McCrea came out of retirement to do this film because he didn't want his last work on cinema to be Cry Blood Apache. This was a western done six years before in which Joel McCrea made a small appearance as an older version of the character that star Jody McCrea played. Jody also produced that rather worthless work and Joel must have regretted he didn't make retirement stick after Ride The High Country the way co-star Randolph Scott did.While Mustang Country will never attain the classic status of Ride The High Country, it's still a nice family western drama. McCrea is on screen for 98% of it with young Nika Mina his Indian co-star. McCrea is a western old timer, former sheep rancher who lives with his daughter and her family, but is now on business of his own to catch a wild black stallion on whom a bounty's been put. But you don't just kill a magnificent animal like this. Along the way McCrea finds young Nika Mina in the wilderness making for home after leaving the white man's school. He's on his way back to the reservation to see his grandfather who raised him. When they get home, grandfather has died and McCrea is all this kid has.So it's the old man, the kid, the old man's mare and his dog. What more do you need to make a family picture? There aren't any human villains, the closest Mustang Country has to a villain is a rogue grizzly bear old Three Toes. As for the stallion, he's up to all the tricks that man can devise. But what he isn't up to is a call to nature and the fact he's been alone himself in the woods for a long time. Good thing McCrea was riding a mare.Only two other human actors have any substantial roles. Robert Fuller and Patrick Wayne play a couple of other cowboys looking to collect the bounty on the stallion, but he's up to their double teaming. They visit with McCrea at his camp for a bit and leave the film early.The cinematography in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada is really first rate. That and Joel McCrea are the best things about Mustang Country.

This has been described as a Western but I tend to disagree feeling it has more of an affinity with the "wilderness"movies and TV series that were being made around the same time ,such as Adventures of the Wilderness Family and Grizzly Adams.It is a simple tale of an ex-rodeo star turned rancher (Joel McCrea)who ,joined by a young native American boy (Nika Mina)sets out to capture the last wild mustang in Montana ,during the 1920's .There are only two other roles -a brief one scene appearance from Robert Fuller (ex of the Laramie TV show)and Patrick Wayne.The movie is pleasant but inconsequential offering little drama or character interaction but beguiling the eye with some attractive scenery and I suspect its main appeal will be to those seeking undisturbing family entertainment . It was to be Joel McCrea's last movie and he brought to it his usual rock solid professionalism The movie uses clips from earlier McCrea movies to illustrate the psst life of his character in this movie ..It would have been more fitting if he had ended his career with what turned out to be his penultimate movie Ride the High Country -that wonderfully elegy and tribute to a passing breed of men .As it was he left with this movie -pleasant ,untroubling but a bit too soft focused to be really aimed at adultsIts nice and its amiable -nothing more.

My daughter loves horses and is 6 years old. She and I watched this movie and were delighted the entire time. This is one of the very few G rated movies that is actually made in such a way that no parts were too intense for a young child. The scenery was lovely. The nature scenes were wonderful. The dialogue was simple, but very real, and laced with kindness that is rare these days. I loved the subtle wisdom of Dan, and the way the boy was refreshed by his influence. An overall winner in my book. One funny detail was that a pure-bred rottweiler dog was in the film, and when the owner was asked what kind of dog it was, he replied, "You name it, he's got it!"