A Horse Tale (AKA A Horse Tail, A Christmas Promise)

Dir: Brad Keller

2015

*

Brad Keller's utterly boring A Horse Tale was originally called A Horse Tail. I can only imagine they changed the name because they knew that the only people dumb enough to think this is good quality entertainment and worth dedicating 90 minutes of their lives to, wouldn't have understood the play on words. Here in the UK it has the completely different title of A Christmas Promise. Clearly, Brad Keller and gang think that we are even more stupid and wouldn't notice the fact that this film has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas. It's barely about horses. Patrick Muldoon (Starship Troopers) plays Michael Thompson, an accountant and single father who agrees to help out a family struggling to keep their stable in the country. He brings his moody daughter with him to the farm and she soon shakes off her stereotypical bratty persona, that it seems all all city people have, when she falls in love with a Horse. Girl meets Horse, Father meets horse's owner, no prizes for guessing how the rest of the film pans out. The rather uncharismatic Charisma Carpenter plays the manager of the Stable, her acting style relying purely on the simple rule that arms crossed = not happy, arms not crossed = happy. The film pretty much repeats the same two scenes, just shot at different angles. Girl rides horse, man sits at desk (with reading glasses on) tapping numbers into calculator, stopping occasionally to inform everyone that 'things aren't looking very good'. In the end they realise that they were actually millionaires all along and everyone, including the horse, lives happily ever after. I was praying for a Brain Bug to come along and suck each and every one of their skulls dry but alas it wasn't that kind of film. If you like mental torture and have all the time in the world then this is the film for you.