The Unknown Ranger: A horse is the mastermind?

Is it worth your time?

If you have a soft spot for weird, low-budget 1930s westerns where the plot makes sense only if you squint really hard, then sure. It is a quick watch. If you hate old movies that feel like they were filmed in someone's backyard with three cameras and a dream, stay far away.

Bob Allen is perfectly fine here. He has that classic square-jawed look that screams 'I am the hero, please trust me with your cattle.' It is his first big lead, and he carries it like he's done it a dozen times already. 🤠

The horse problem

The whole movie revolves around this mystery of disappearing livestock. The ranchers are all sweating and pointing fingers at each other. They suspect spies, drifters, the usual suspects.

And then there is the horse. The movie treats this horse like it is some kind of equine criminal mastermind. I kept waiting for the humans to realize they were being outsmarted by a pony, but they just kept looking for footprints of men in boots.

It is oddly funny, but the movie refuses to acknowledge how goofy it is. That makes it better, honestly.

• The dialogue is mostly just people shouting orders while standing in front of rocks.
• The horses seem to have more screen presence than some of the side characters.
• There is a distinct lack of scenery, which makes me think they spent the entire budget on hay.

If you've seen something like When a Man Sees Red, you know the rhythm of these things. It's fast, it's dusty, and nobody has time for character development when there's a rustling crisis at hand.

There is this one moment where a character stares intensely at a fence post for way too long. I don't know if he was supposed to be thinking or if he just forgot his lines, but the camera stayed on him until it became almost uncomfortable.

It's not a masterpiece. It's barely a coherent story, really. But it has that specific, grainy charm that you just don't get with modern stuff. Sometimes you just want to watch a guy in a big hat try to outwit a horse for an hour. Is that so much to ask?

The pacing is all over the place. One minute they are having a tense shootout, and the next they are just wandering around the desert talking about grain prices. It is beautifully uneven. 🐎

I don't think anyone involved in this project was trying to change the world. They just wanted to make a movie about a horse thief, and they accidentally made a movie about a thief-horse. That’s enough for me.