Wild horses movie ending explained

In his first film as writer-director-star since 2002’s “Assassination Tango,” Robert Duvall delivers a complex, ambitious genre piece that combines family drama and murder mystery, set in the south Texas ranch country.

While the mix doesn’t always cohere, the film boasts moments and scenes that rank with Duvall’s best work.

The tale begins with a scene so darkly lit and rapidly staged that it’s hard to tell exactly what’s happening.

But the gist soon becomes clear: Rancher Scott Briggs (Duvall) catches his youngest son engaged in sexual activity with another young man and throws both of them out into the dark, banishing his boy from his life with curses and furious urgings that he read the Bible.

Fifteen years later, Briggs is the same cussed sonuvabitch but things are happening on two fronts that signal change in his settled life.

For one thing, a Texas Ranger named Samantha Payne (Luciana Duvall, the filmmaker’s real-life wife) is moving to reopen the case of the boy that Briggs