LOS ANGELES, May 6 (UPI) -- Dennis Quaid and Wyatt Russell say their new movie Broke, on video-on-demand Tuesday, hints at a redemption to come after the credits roll. The two play a father and son in the modern-day western drama.
Russell stars as True Brandywine, an aspiring rodeo bronco rider failing to make a living at his dream and becomes addicted to painkillers for his injuries. Quaid plays his father, George, who encourages him to commit to more stable farming work.
In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, the actors agreed that True's redemption doesn't necessarily come during the running time of the film.
"I think there's redemption in jumping through the rings of fire that you have to get to in order to deserve redemption," Russell said. "I could argue that the end of the movie is the start of the redemptive arc which was a fun way to structure the film. Yeah, I think it's really about getting to that starting point of redemption."
Quaid was not even entirely sure that True would follow the redemptive path when the events of the movie conclude.
"This is almost like missed opportunity for redemption in a way," Quaid said. "If anything, it's a bitter tasting redemption I think."
True's plight is intensified when he is trapped in a blizzard and must survive in the wilderness. While traversing the snow and trying to stay warm and alive, True remembers events and relationships he sacrificed.
"You hurt a lot of people along the way or you lie to yourself," Russell said. You're not telling the whole truth to people and not telling the whole truth to yourself. You have to come to that realization to be able to even start your redemptive arc."
Russell went through many of True's trials and tribulations in reality, albeit with writer/director Carlyle Eubank calling cut when he got the shot. Russell said, however, many of True's survival skills were employed on the set, such as fashioning snowshoes out of branches and lighting a fire with lint and grease.
"It actually kind of worked," Russell said of the snowshoes. "They were hard to walk in but they work."
Though Quaid does not appear in the snowstorm scenes, he appreciated the way the film portrayed True's "relationship with the source."
The role of a farmer came naturally to Quaid, who owned a ranch in Montana until he sold it in 2011.
"I'm familiar with these people and all the equipment, whether it's a C-Tractor or whatever," Quaid said. "I've been around horses. It's just part of me."
Quaid even performed at rodeos, though he never "bronc'ed."
"I did some calf roping," Quaid said. "I still got my thumbs so that's good, both of them."
Riding horses in movies runs in Russell's family. His father is Kurt Russell, who starred in westerns Tombstone and Bone Tomahawk, and dealt with reindeer in The Christmas Chronicles.
Wyatt's grandfather, Bing Russell, worked in many John Ford westerns, plus The Magnificent Seven and episodes of Bonanza and Gunsmoke. Wyatt had enough horse training on the film Cowboys & Aliens and TV's The Good Lord Bird that he could perform some of his own rodeo work in Broke.
"Dallying was all done by me and roping the bull was me doing most of it," Russell said. "Getting on the horses in the chute and stuff like that, those are all real bucking horses. When that chute opens I was going for a ride."
Stuntmen performed the hard falls True took. Russell said he took enough licks of his own on a bucking simulator.
"That thing will rip you apart," Russell said. "It's no joke. I got more injured on that thing than I have been on anything in a long time. I didn't know the strength of it but got through it, made it look real. Can't fake gravity."
Whether or not True emerges from his ordeals in a better place remains open to the viewer's interpretation. One event that is definitely in Russell's future is the next Avengers movie.
Russell's Marvel movie Thunderbolts* opened Friday, but in March Marvel released a video announcing the cast of Avengers: Doomsday. Russell's name was confirmed.
Right now, Russell is still in the dark but said he "can't wait to see what they have in store for us."
"They're great filmmakers, the Russo Brothers. Excited to see what we're going to do there," he added. "I wouldn't tell you if I knew, but I don't know."
