The Last Rodeo (Christian Movie Review)

All the familiar, crowd-pleasing genre elements are present, but the film struggles to hang on to them long enough for a prize-winning ride. The Last Rodeo has a compelling story and some redemptive themes but is ultimately let down by a lackluster script and poor execution.

About the Film 

The classic underdog story is quintessential cinema. Hollywood has showcased countless heroic individuals who rose to the occasion against seemingly insurmountable odds. Angel Studios (a faith-based studio authoring its own underdog tale in recent years) follows in this storytelling legacy with The Last Rodeo. All the familiar, crowd-pleasing genre elements are present, but the film struggles to hang on to them long enough for a prize-winning ride. The Last Rodeo has a compelling story and some redemptive themes but is ultimately let down by a lackluster script and poor execution.

Joe Wainwright (played by Neal McDonough) is a former bull riding legend who attempts one final ride in order to win the prize money needed to pay the substantial medical bills for his grandson’s urgent surgery. Toss in a subplot of lost and rediscovered Christian faith, and the film has all the makings of a satisfying faith-based story. The overall acting performance of the cast is largely hit or miss, but actor Neal McDonough is a Hollywood mainstay for a reason. He has a captivating screen presence and an impressive physicality in the central role as Joe Wainwright, even if the character isn’t developed much further than his gruff exterior.

Notably, the faith-based genre has historically aimed primarily at feminine sensibilities (with middle-aged women statistically being the biggest audience demographic). But The Last Rodeo is unapologetically masculine. A story of “manly men doing manly things” is a welcome development in an entertainment industry that has been trending away from, deconstructing, and even villainizing traditional masculinity. Although, admittedly, The Last Rodeo sometimes feels like the equivalent of the notorious, over-the-top Christian men’s ministry events that pack out stadiums to watch monster trucks and listen to classic rock. Thus, you have the almost in-your-face masculinity of macho bull riders standing around shirtless (if I have McDonough’s body at 60 years old I’ll be ditching my shirt too), knocking back drinks, and gruffly declaring things like, “I’m going to kick you’re a—.”

Personally, I’m not wholesale opposed to the inclusion of any profanity in faith-centric stories if such language is warranted and authentic to the story (as director Martin Scorsese has demonstrated). At the same time, I do find the recent tendency to use profanity as a cheap gimmick to prove to audiences that “this isn’t your grandfather’s faith-based film genre” to be cringeworthy and unnecessary. Granted, harsh language is certainly not uncommon to hear at a rodeo, but it feels at odds with the softer and more traditional “evangelistic” tone of the rest of the movie. In a way, The Last Rodeo feels trapped in an awkward middle ground between the sanitized expectations of a faith-based film and the hypothetical grittier mainstream Hollywood version of the story, and it results in a movie that may fail to please either audience.

The biggest issue, however, is the film’s maddening tendency to “tell” rather than “show.” Much of the story’s most compelling drama is shared through extensive dialogue rather than being displayed on screen.  Almost the entire first half of the movie unfolds in sequential scenes in which various characters deliver lengthy exposition dumps to fill in backstories. These events would be far more compelling if viewers could see them (even if just as flashbacks) and make the connection themselves. Like an inverted version of Ernest Hemingway’s famous “iceberg theory,” (that key elements of a story don’t have to be spelled out but are better implied), rather than these backstories adding a sense of emotional depth and meaning to the main plot, the insistence on laboriously narrating all the unseen exposition beneath the water distracts from the story instead of supporting and enhancing it.

For example, Joe Wainwright’s fall from grace is told entirely in retrospective dialogue rather than shown. Multiple scenes describe Joe and Charlie’s relational history, how Charlie was in a dark place, and how they served in the army together. When the duo later encounters Jimmy (the head of the rodeo competition), their shared history is delivered through a lengthy, dialogue-heavy scene. Even the film’s climactic ending skips forward in time six months with the winner of the competition revealed through dialogue rather than allowing audiences the satisfaction of seeing it play out. A TV interview from that long-past event inexplicably plays on the TV during the final scene that fills in some of the narrative gaps, despite half a year having passed (one of many logic-defying conveniences in the movie). As a result, the film can feel more like trekking through a Wikipedia page than being swept up in a cinematic story, as audiences are repeatedly told why they should be invested in the characters and storylines, rather than the story itself earning that support.

In the end, The Last Rodeo will likely find an audience eager to embrace its inspirational story, Christian themes, and refreshingly masculine tone. But like trying to hang on to a bucking bull, the cinematic experience itself is unfortunately a bumpy ride. If Hollywood’s underdog stories have taught us anything, it’s that we can celebrate the effort and heart of these unsung heroes but must also accept that even the most noble intentions don’t always end in a victory. The Last Rodeo has its heart in the right place, but at the end of the day, it is simply too derivative and poorly scripted to finish its tale as a triumph. 

Masculinity & The Problem of Pain

As mentioned above, a central theme of the film is a celebration of traditional masculinity. In several of the pre-release press interviews, actor Neal McDonough has stated that the movie is a challenge for men to “man up” and do what needs to be done for their family and loved ones. Masculinity has become a hot button conversation in today’s culture, often discussed with the label “toxic” preceding it. The Last Rodeo doesn’t necessarily add to that ongoing conversation in any direct way, but it does provide a clear counterpoint and positive representative of manhood.

Narratively, Joe Wainwright’s personal journey is one that many viewers of either gender will find relatable even if they don’t share the same experiences. The film largely explores the “problem of pain,” and the question of why a loving God allows so much suffering in the world. On the outside, Joe is a strong, no nonsense, “manly” man, but several scenes show him struggling to contain his emotions, and the anger and hurt that he harbors inside. The primary target of his anger is God, who he blames for the hardships he has experienced in life—such as the tragic loss of his wife to a terminal illness, the collapse of his bull riding career to injury, and now his grandson developing the same illness that took his wife.

This anger has led Joe to a crisis of faith. He appears to still believe in God but no longer wants anything to do with Him. Along the way, he is encouraged by his friend, Charlie, who has gone through a similar dark time of anger and resentment toward God, only to ultimately find peace by returning to God. The film doesn’t attempt to offer simplistic answers to the problem. Instead, the story offers a more personal response. Pain and suffering are real, but it is in the middle of that brokenness that God’s love is most needed and felt most profoundly.