The Rider – 6.5

A good film to discover, unheralded, at a small film festival – not something to be seen at CityCinema3 in Manhattan. The amateur acting is remarkably good, but occasionally painful; the shots of horses are welcome, except when the horse is literally shot; and the scenes of the West are surprisingly plain. The story, as one reviewer noted, is “how we deal with the hand we are dealt.” It’s a quiet movie, with a lot of longeurs.