PG | 1h 58m | Drama, Sports | 2025
First, the good news: “The Last Rodeo” is leading man Neal McDonough’s third Angel Studio project in as many years, and it is slightly better than the last one (“Homestead”). The bad news: It’s not nearly as good as “The Shift,” where McDonough played a humanized incarnation of Satan.
Here, McDonough plays Joe, a former champion bull rider in his late 50s, who reluctantly comes out of retirement. Against practically everyone’s wishes, Joe is doing this to cover uninsured expenses related to his grandson’s surgery to remove a brain tumor.
In keeping with Angel Studio’s usual business model, “The Last Rodeo” checks all of the content boxes. It’s a story of hope and redemption in the face of adversity with an emphasis on faith and spirituality. Penned by McDonough, director Jon Avnet, and Derek Presley, the movie also serves as primer into the world of competitive bull riding. It often makes the huge mistake of assuming the audience already knows everything about the relatively little-known sport.
Unanswered Questions
I knew nothing about the rodeo going in and little more about it when the movie was over. For instance, all riders are required to remain on their mounts for eight seconds. Why eight seconds? Why not 10? What if they make it to 20 seconds?None of this is ever explained. Neither is the point system or the number of judges involved in contributing to the total. The only thing that is made clear: If the rider falls or is thrown off by the bull prior to the eight-second mark, they are eliminated from the competition.
This isn’t the only aspect of the screenplay that is wanting. The father of the grandson (Graham Harvey as Cody) is never referred to by name or even acknowledged. Cody’s mother Sally (Sarah Jones) shares her father’s surname (Wainwright) which isn’t all that unusual. Is Sally an unwed mother, a divorced single mom, a widow, or is Cody adopted? In the great scheme of things this is a minor oversight, but if a child might die while being operated on, shouldn’t the father be mentioned even if it’s in a negative light?
The Cornerman
The rodeo equivalent of a boxing cornerman, Charlie was with Joe during his glory days; they’ve also known each other since serving together in an unspecified war. They’ve been estranged for reasons that (again) are not really explained, although it could be because of what happened after Joe’s wife Rose died.
Portrayed only in flashback, still photos, and a fantasy scene, Rose (McDonough’s off-screen wife, Ruve) died of an ailment akin to that of Cody’s. Twice the pair is shown displaying a three-finger (index, middle, and ring) salute to each other, but without any explanation of its origin. It certainly means something, but without exposition—any exposition—we never find out.
Not showing up until the halfway point, Christopher McDonald co-stars as Jimmy Mack, a rodeo promoter running the competition Joe wants to enter. With a top prize of $750,000, this would be more than enough to cover Cody’s surgery. The catch: All of the participants are former world champs, and all of them are far younger than Joe.
Professional Bull Riders
The fictional event is organized, overseen, and broadcast by the Professional Bull Riders organization (PBR), the largest group of its kind in the world. It’s likely PBR footed some of the production costs, as is usually the case when nonfictional product placement is used in movies and on TV. If this is indeed the case, it’s a win-win for PBR. The company’s brand will reach an entirely new audience, leading to an extension of its reach and appeal.Given the plethora of holes in the plot, I was certain the ending would follow suit or be far too pat and predictable, but I’m happy to report I was wrong. As it turns out, the ending is the best part of the entire movie, but it’s too little too late.
The biggest frustration is in knowing all of the aforementioned plot holes could have been easily rectified with just a few fleeting lines of dialogue.
Comme ci, comme ca.
