Anna Sewell’s timeless classic “Black Beauty,” now streaming on Disney+, is given an update in a gentle, family-friendly take on a girl and a horse who “share the same Mustang spirit.”
The titular character is a wild horse, born to roam free until she is rounded up, taken from her family and sent to Birtwick Stables where she is to be trained and sold off to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, Jo Green (Mackenzie Foy of “Twilight” and “The Conjuring”) has lost her immediate family and is sent to live with her horse trainer Uncle John (Iain Glen). Feeling lost, she’s unhappy and unfamiliar with life at the stables. Soon though, a bond forms between her and the Mustang named Black Beauty. Somehow, they see themselves reflected in one another. “You’ve gotten closer to that filly in days than I have in weeks,” says Uncle John. “They say a horse picks you.”
Later, when it’s time for Black Beauty to move along top a new owner, Jo protests. “If I fought for every horse I ever loved,” Uncle John says, “I’d have a hundred of them.”
“I don’t want a hundred horses,” Foy responds. “I just want one.”
And so it goes, the connection between a girl and her horse remains unbroken, despite the ups and downs in both their lives.
This version of “Black Beauty” features a first, two female leads, Foy and Kate Winslet. The Oscar winning Winslet supplies the voice of Black Beauty in narration, in calm, measured tones that suggest she’s reading the inside of a schmaltzy Hallmark greeting card. “A true mustang never gives up on hope and love,” she whinnies.
It has also dialed back much of the rough stuff—there’s no enforced labor pulling London cabs for instance—that younger viewers may have found distressing in the original story but there are still some emotional scenes that will pull at the heartstrings of young and old.
“Black Beauty” errs on the side of sentimentality, favoring uplift over real edge, but while the smoothed down version has changed some of the details of Sewell’s story but the underlying messages of loyalty and kindness to animals remain the same.
There’s nothing particularly precious about “Precious Cargo,” a new crime thriller starring Mark-Paul Gossalaar, Claire Forlani and Bruce Willis. A b-movie—in this case I think the “b” stands for bullets, bikinis and bombs—with wild heists, action scenes and bad dialogue delivered badly, it’s as subtle as a slap to the face.
Gossalaar is Jack, a cocky guy who thrives on the adrenaline rush that goes along with doing bad things. At the beginning of the film he is almost killed when a deal to sell guns goes bad. In the aftermath he tries to lay low but is drawn back into the life when his former partner in bed and out, Karen (Forlani), shows up pregnant with an offer and a bunch of bad guys on her tail. The villains (who are luckily very bad shots) are the henchmen for Eddie (Willis), a vicious crime boss who Karen conned. Seems she owes Eddie $12 million and wants Jack to help her steal the money.
“The last time I helped you I almost ended up on the wrong side of the grass,” he moans before agreeing to lift an armoured car full of diamonds.
The job goes well, until Jack has a gut feeling something is amiss. Turns out Karen hasn’t been completely upfront (“She’s always going to be Karen,” says sniper Logan (Jenna B. Kelly). “Now she’s just Karen with a kid.”) and from this point on the movie turns into a criminal “Inception,” a heist within a heist, complete with double-crosses and improbable alliances.
“Precious Cargo” is an enjoyably forgettable shoot ‘em up. Short on plot believability but long on hard-boiled dialogue, (“You’re not dead yet?” “Only on the inside.”) it’s the kind of movie where getaway drivers are drunkards (“I never drive drunk. Buzzed, maybe. Hungover? Absolutely.”) and where characters say things like, “I got to put a bullet in somebody’s brain before I put one in my own.” In its dialogue and not-exactly-enlightened attitude toward women it almost plays like a satire of b-movies, but director Max Adams’s background as a writer on po-faced hardboiled potboilers like ”Heist” and “Extraction” suggests otherwise.
At a tight 90 minutes—including bloopers and a tagged on post-heist scene—“Precious Cargo” is here for a good time and blessedly not a long time.
