cowboy up movie review

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Rent Cowboy Up on Prime Video, or buy it on Prime Video.

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Xavier Koller

Marcus Thomas

Ely Braxton

Kiefer Sutherland

Hank Braxton

Daryl Hannah

Celia Jones

Pete Postlethwaite

Reid Braxton

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This movie is featured in the following articles..

Kiefer Sutherland (Hank Braxton) Marcus Thomas (Ely Braxton) Daryl Hannah (Celia Jones) Pete Postlethwaite (Reid Braxton) Melinda Dillon (Rose Braxton) Molly Ringwald (Connie) Russell Means (Joe) Anthony Luke Lucero (Jed) Bo Hopkins (Ray Drupp) Timothy Daly (Young Ely)

Xavier Koller

Two brothers, One is a bull rider, the other a rodeo bullfighter/stock contractor, clash over the love of barrel racer Celia Jones, while each comes into their own in their respective field in the rodeo world.

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Produced by, distributed by, cowboy up (2001), directed by xavier koller.

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Synopsis by Mark Deming

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Cowboy Up is a celebration of the risk-taking, daredevil personalities of modern rodeo. In the world of professional bull riding, newcomer Ely Braxton (Marcus Thomas) is the craziest guy around; his brother Hank (Kiefer Sutherland) is a rodeo clown, and the two use each other to play up their acts. But love may be one thing that tears the brothers apart. When Ely falls for the rodeo's sweetheart (Daryl Hannah), Hank is filled with jealousy and hatred. The brothers try to come to grips with their differences, but the competition gets as fierce as the bulls in the ring.

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Tom & jerry: cowboy up, common sense media reviewers.

Some slapstick violence in Western-themed cartoon.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

This movie is meant to entertain, not educate.

Teamwork. Some mention of the true meaning of home

Tom and Jerry fight a bit, but mostly work togethe

One of the ranch hands is Latino -- as cartoonish

While not as violent as the classic Tom & Jerr

Part of a popular franchise.

Educational Value

Positive messages.

Teamwork. Some mention of the true meaning of home and family.

Positive Role Models

Tom and Jerry fight a bit, but mostly work together.

Diverse Representations

One of the ranch hands is Latino -- as cartoonish a depiction as the sheriff, the other cowboys, the damsel in distress, etc.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

While not as violent as the classic Tom & Jerry cartoons of yesteryear, there are still moments of slapstick animated violence throughout. Cowboys fall on cacti, characters chased by an angry bull, pies to face, characters thrown off a cart, slammed into a fence, Jerry chased with a character wielding a pitchfork, assorted pratfalls. Tom shoots a cannon and fireworks at the bad guys. Ranch catches fire and burns down.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

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Parents need to know.

Parents need to know that Tom & Jerry: Cowboy Up! is a 2022 animated movie in which the cat and mouse must work together to help a cowgirl keep her ranch away from a greedy land grabber. While not as violent as the classic Tom & Jerry cartoons of yesteryear, there are still many instances of slapstick animated violence. A cowboy falls backwards into a cactus, characters throw pies to the faces of others, characters thrown off carts, chased by angry bulls, thrown into fences. Tom chases Jerry with a pitchfork. Tom fires a cannon and fireworks at the villains. The ranch catches fire and burns down. Aside from this, it's a pretty standard cartoon story, with some positive messages about teamwork and the meaning of home and family. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

In TOM & JERRY: COWBOY UP! , Bentley has just returned to the ranch that's run by his sister Betty. He has brought along his pet cat Tom, and while Bentley brags to Betty about his success in the city as an aspiring railroad tycoon, Tom is immediately up to his old tricks and chases Jerry and his three mouse nephews around the ranch. After Bentley sees the mice near his food on the dinner table, he immediately wants to catch the mice and remove them from the premises. This leads to an opportunity for a greedy land grabber, who sends a bumbling prairie dog-hating villain who tells Betty his name is "Sunflower Muleytoad" and brings along three cats who he claims are some of the best mouse catchers in the West. As the landgrabber schemes to get Betty to unwittingly sign paperwork that would give away her ranch, Tom and Jerry, along with assistance from Jerry's nephews and a vast coterie of prairie dogs living around and below the ranch, must team up to save the ranch.

Is It Any Good?

It's a Tom and Jerry cartoon set in the Wild West. In this movie, the pair set aside their long-standing rivalry to work together to stop an unscrupulous land grabber from stealing a ranch. There's enough of the comedy slapstick and pratfalls that have come to define Tom's endless pursuit of Jerry, but with none of the violence (and racism) of the mid-20th century cartoons. There are some decent song sequences throughout, and a rare joke intended for the grown-ups instead of the kids. To make up for the lack of speech from Jerry or Tom, Jerry now has three precocious little nephews who don't lack for anything to say.

It's a perfectly fine movie for its targeted audience. Interestingly, the titular cat and mouse don't even come across as the stars of their own movie. There's one distinct sequence near the beginning where Tom chases Jerry, but in the rest of the movie they're overshadowed by Jerry's nephews, the prairie dogs, other cats, the sheriff, and all the other humans. It's nothing new, but kids are likely to enjoy the silly antics.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about cartoon violence like the kind seen in Tom & Jerry: Cowboy Up! How does the violence compare to that in other cartoons, from today and from the past?

What do the characters learn about home and family?

How is this like other movies set in the "Wild West?"

Movie Details

On DVD or streaming : January 25, 2022
Cast : George Ackles , Sean Burgos , Trevor Devall
Director : Darrell Van Citters
Studio : Warner Bros. Animation
Genre : Family and Kids
Topics : Cats, Dogs, and Mice , Horses and Farm Animals
Run time : 75 minutes
MPAA rating : NR
Last updated : April 27, 2023

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Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Watch Cowboy Up

1 hr 45 min
5.6 (947)

Cowboy Up is a 2001 drama film directed by Xavier Koller, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Marcus Thomas, and Daryl Hannah. The film revolves around the lives of two brothers, young cowboys, who face the challenges of the rodeo circuit and their tumultuous relationships with women. The film opens with Hank (Kiefer Sutherland), a retired rodeo champion who is now running his family's cattle ranch in New Mexico. He and his girlfriend Celia (Molly Ringwald) are concerned for his younger brother Ely (Marcus Thomas), a talented bull rider who is constantly getting into trouble. Ely is brash, arrogant and reckless in his personal life, and his behavior often hinders his riding success.

Their father and mentor, Austin Rose (Peter Coyote), is a legendary rodeo cowboy who has been declared medically unfit to ride due to a head injury. Austin is trying to convince Ely to take a break from riding, get his life in order, and focus on taking over the family business. However, Ely wants to follow in his father's footsteps and become a champion bull rider.

As the rodeo circuit progresses, Ely's reckless behavior alienates him from women and his fellow cowboys. He falls for J.C. (Meadow Williams), an attractive and free-spirited barrel racer, but their relationship is complicated by J.C.'s ties to Tuck (Russell Means), an older Native American cowboy who is Austin's close friend and a respected member of the rodeo community.

Meanwhile, Hank rekindles his romance with Celia, who has returned to New Mexico after a failed marriage. Their relationship becomes strained when a beautiful but manipulative veterinarian named Tracy (Daryl Hannah) comes to town and starts to come between them.

As the film moves towards its climax, Ely's personal demons begin to catch up with him. He is forced to come to terms with the choices he has made and the consequences they have for his dreams, relationships, and family.

The film boasts some great rodeo scenes, providing a thrilling and often dangerous insight into the life of a rodeo cowboy. The competitive, high-risk lifestyle of bull riders is portrayed with gritty realism, accompanied by Jesse Dayton's twangy soundtrack.

Sutherland and Thomas both gave standout performances as tough, flawed men with family legacies that define their self-worth. The contrast between Hank's stoicism and Ely's hyperactivity makes for an interesting dynamic. Hannah is also noteworthy in her role as Tracy, infusing the character with an alluring yet manipulative quality.

Cowboy Up is a bittersweet drama that explores the complexities of cowboy culture, the bonds of brotherhood, and the toll of living a life on the edge. It's a film that will appeal to anyone interested in Westerns, rodeos, or human drama in general.

Cowboy Up is a 2001 action movie with a runtime of 1 hour and 45 minutes. It has received moderate reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 5.6.

Genres Action Drama Romance Western
Cast Kiefer Sutherland Marcus Thomas Daryl Hannah
Director Xavier Koller
Release Date 2001
MPAA Rating PG-13
Runtime 1 hr 45 min
Language English
IMDB Rating 5.6 (947)

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Cowboy Up (2002) Stream and Watch Online

Watch 'cowboy up' online.

Yearning to watch ' Cowboy Up ' on your TV or mobile device at home? Hunting down a streaming service to buy, rent, download, or watch the Xavier Koller-directed movie via subscription can be a huge pain, so we here at Moviefone want to take the pressure off. Read on for a listing of streaming and cable services - including rental, purchase, and subscription choices - along with the availability of 'Cowboy Up' on each platform when they are available. Now, before we get into all the details of how you can watch 'Cowboy Up' right now, here are some details about the Code Entertainment Neverland Films Orchid Productions Destination Films western flick. Released September 3rd, 2002, 'Cowboy Up' stars Kiefer Sutherland , Marcus Thomas , Daryl Hannah , Melinda Dillon The PG13 movie has a runtime of about 1 hr 45 min, and received a user score of 62 (out of 100) on TMDb, which compiled reviews from 19 well-known users. You probably already know what the movie's about, but just in case... Here's the plot: "Cowboy Up is a celebration of the risktaking daredevil personalities of modern rodeo In the world of professional bull riding newcomer Ely Braxton Marcus Thomas is the craziest guy around his brother Hank Kiefer Sutherland is a rodeo clown and the two use each other to play up their acts But love may be one thing that tears the brothers apart When Ely falls for the rodeos sweetheart Daryl Hannah Hank is filled with jealousy and hatred The brothers try to come to grips with their differences but the competition gets as fierce as the bulls in the ring" 'Cowboy Up' is currently available to rent, purchase, or stream via subscription on Apple iTunes, Amazon Video, Microsoft Store, Google Play Movies, and YouTube .

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Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Dennis Schwartz I wasn't a fan of the bull riding sport before or did I become one after seeing the film.

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, midnight cowboy.

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Long after it was first released, "Midnight Cowboy" remains one of a handful of films that stay in our memory after the others have evaporated. Its love story between two drifters, the naïve Joe Buck and the street-savvy Ratso Rizzo, is a reference point for other films. Some of its moments, like the one where Ratso pounds on a nudging taxi and shouts, "I'm walking here!" have entered into the folklore.

And yet, and yet … a 1994 viewing of the film confirms my original opinion, expressed in 1969, that the movie as a whole doesn't live up to its parts. And that Joe and Ratso rise above the material, taking on a reality of their own while the screenplay detours into the fashionable New York demimonde. "Midnight Cowboy" is a good movie with a masterpiece inside, struggling to break free.

The best thing in the movie is the acting, by Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman as a simple-minded Texas drifter and a cynical Broadway street operator. This was the movie that established Voight's career, and proved that Hoffman, after the triumph of " The Graduate ," had many more notes inside of him -- and was destined to become one of the great character actors of his time. Voight and Hoffman both won Oscar nominations as best actor. Over their shoulders, we could see a real world, the world of Times Square in the 1960s, which at the time seemed bleak and dangerous -- but in the less innocent 1990s seems positioned half-way between our current despair and lingering myths of Damon Runyon.

The characters and their immediate world are absolutely right, then. But the director, John Schlesinger , was not willing to tell their story with the simplicity I think it required. He took those two magnificent performances and dropped them into a trendy, gimmick-ridden exercise in fashionable cinema. The ghost of the Swinging Sixties haunts "Midnight Cowboy," and robs it of the timelessness it should possess.

I wrote at the time: "Joe Buck and Ratso are castaways in 'Midnight Cowboy.' They go their own ways, cold and wet, thrown out with the garbage, sharing their dreams of Florida or the ultimate rich broad. They live their own lives, become two of the permanent inhabitants of our imagination, like Bonnie and Clyde. They exist apart from the movie, outside of it. Their lives have nothing to do with Andy Warhol parties, or escort services, or hard Park Avenue dames. And who can really believe they would ever find themselves on that bus to Florida? It is cruel to take the reality of Times Square -- the existence of the real people like Ratso and Joe -- and tell their story as if it were a soap opera. The form that has been imposed on this story simply will not fit."

I still feel that is the case. What has happened to "Midnight Cowboy" is that we've done our own editing job on it. We've forgotten the excesses and the detours, and remembered the purity of the central characters and the Voight and Hoffman performances. Seeing the movie again was a reminder of what else, unfortunately, it contains.

The heart of the movie is that Joe Buck, who thinks he will become the lover of a rich woman and be supported by her in a life of luxury, finds his small-town dreams destroyed. Although he briefly makes some money as a hustler, he finds he is expendable, disposable -- and lacking the skills to survive in the city.

Then he meets Ratso Rizzo, a person entirely outside his experience. Ratso is well-named. He makes his own way in the city, hated, asking no favors. When Joe finds himself used and discarded, Ratso shows him how to survive. "Midnight Cowboy" should have been about their self-discovery, about the process that took place as they learned to know each other.

Instead, it reaches outside the relationship for a string of melodramatic scenes that will not do. The most offensive is a psychedelic Andy Warhol party scene. Although the scene now provides a certain historical record (and it is fun to spot Warhol "superstars" in cameos), this basic party scene had already, in 1969, been staged many times. In the world they inhabited, there would have been almost no chance of Joe and Ratso being invited to such a party.

Another unnecessary episode involves a religious fanatic with his electric Christ. It might just barely have been pulled off, if only Jesus hadn't started blinking like a car-lot Santa Claus. Another difficult scene involves Joe's sexual encounter with a shy, middle-aged homosexual from Chicago. It goes wrong, Joe reacts violently, and slams the man in the mouth with a telephone, sending false teeth flying. The violence here was particularly shocking in 1969, less so today; but both now and then I wondered if Joe would actually have behaved that way. The action was praised as bravely realistic at the time -- but doesn't it reflect a reality that Joe Buck himself might not inhabit? Wouldn't he more likely simply have left suddenly?

One of the subtexts of the movie is Joe's own homosexuality, which he has never faced or understood. One scene that does work, in developing that theme, is the awkward encounter in the dark movie theater with the kid with horn-rims. But this scene is damaged by flashbacks to Joe's earlier life in Texas, that only offer the appearance of an explanation. The sexual fiasco with the young girl in Texas, and the smothering sexuality of his unattractive grandmother, provide ready-made Freudian shorthand: These experiences, the movie says, led to today's Joe Buck. Does it matter?

In my 1969 review of the film, I complained about the many songs on the sound track. "How long," I asked, "will it be before we recover from 'The Graduate' and can make a movie without half a dozen soul-searching pseudo-significant ballads? When we dump the songs, we'll also be able to get rid of all those scenes of riding on buses, walking the rainy streets, hanging around, etc., that are necessary while the songs are being sung."

The answer, we now know, is that it will be a very long time indeed. The Semi-Obligatory Lyrical Interlude (which I defined at about the time "Midnight Cowboy" was released) is now a standard element in movie storytelling. A song is performed, a montage is provided, and time passes. Sometimes the songs are very good (it is a genuine pleasure to hear "Everybody's Talkin' at Me") but the fact remains, the lyrics tell us about the characters when the film should be showing us instead.

All of these doubts about "Midnight Cowboy" exist entirely apart from the performances of Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight. It is a tribute to them, and to the core of honesty in Waldo Salt's screenplay and Schlesinger's direction (which both won Oscars), that Ratso and Joe Buck emerge so unforgettably drawn. But if films could be revised, or rewritten, it is possible to see now how this one could be more pure.

Note: "Midnight Cowboy" was rated "X" by the MPAA when it was first released, and became the first (and last) X-rated film to win an Academy Award as best picture. At the time, the nudity and the frank portrait of prostitution and homosexuality was shocking. Later, the movie was re-rated "R," and in a sense it is responsible for its own new rating. "Midnight Cowboy" introduced a grimy realism to films about street life in American cities. The subject matter that it opened up was endlessly revisited by other films, from " The Panic in Needle Park " to " Drugstore Cowboy ." Eventually, this film came to seem mild compared to its descendants.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Midnight Cowboy (1969)

Rated R Later re-rated R

113 minutes

Brenda Vaccaro as Shirley

Bob Balaban as Young Student

Barnard Hughes as Towny

Dustin Hoffman as Ratso Rizzo

Sylvia Miles as Cass

Ruth White as Sally Buck

John McGiver as Mr. O'Daniel

Jennifer Salt as Annie

Jon Voight as Joe Buck

Directed by

John Schlesinger

Photographed by

Adam Holender

Based on the novel by

James Leo Herlihy

Screenplay by

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'Dancing Village: The Curse Begins' Review: A Horror With Shades of 'Suspiria'

The dances and visuals offer often strong stuff, though the rest of this horror film never finds it footing.

The Big Picture

Indonesian horror’s on a heater, but Dancing Village: The Curse Begins is an unfortunate cooldown.
Kimo Stamboel isn’t his usual frightening self.
It’s a slow start, a slower continuation, and a bland finish.

Kimo Stamboel ’s influence on Indonesia’s 2000s-and-beyond horror boom cannot be understated, but Dancing Village: The Curse Begins hardly reflects his talents seen in everything from Macabre to The Queen of Black Magic . Those movies Stamboel co-created alongside Timo Tjahjanto as the “Mo Brothers” pushed boundaries, whereas Dancing Village: The Curse Begins feels mechanical and studio-safe . That tracks, since Stamboel’s latest is an adaptation of the novel “KKN di Desa Penari” written by SimpleMan (based on a viral tweet thread) that also serves as a prequel to 2022’s feature film KKN di Desa Penari : the highest-grossing film in Indonesian history. Dancing Village: The Curse Begins feels like Stamboel is sleepwalking through studio mandates, a shell of the maverick horror filmmaker responsible for ruthless flicks like Killers or 2019’s video game adaptation DreadOut (yet to see US distribution).

Dancing Village: The Curse Begins (2024)

A small, festive town is struck by a bizarre curse that forces its inhabitants to dance uncontrollably. Amidst this strange phenomenon, a young folklore enthusiast and her friends delve into ancient legends to find a solution, discovering that the key to saving their community lies in a long-forgotten ritual.

The prequel revolves around a desperate young woman named Mila ( Maudy Effrosina ). Her mother — Inggri ( Maryam Supraba ) — lies catatonic in bed, suffering from an unknown affliction. A visiting shaman instructs Mila to return a mystical bracelet to a village on the easternmost tip of Java island . Mila, her cousin Yuda ( Jourdy Pranata ), and two friends reach the “Dancing Village” as instructed, but instead of finding the territory’s noble guardian, they encounter the feared hip-shaking entity Badarawuhi ( Aulia Sarah ).

Dancing Village: The Curse Begins translates traditional Indonesian culture into horror-focused storytelling like Joko Anwar ’s Impetigore or elsewhere in Banjong Pisanthanakun ’s brilliant Thai-South Korean mockumentary The Medium . Stamboel channels Indonesian beliefs and folklore through Mila’s journey, treating the tale like a dark fable set in a jungle community that lives off the land . Scenes provide windows into Jakartan lifestyles and trace lineages from newer generations like Mila back to villages where grandmothers reside as wise elders, but not with enough engagement. Impetigore and The Medium balance frightfully haunted elements with viewpoints rooted in cultural significance (new or old), the opposite of Stamboel’s predictably supernatural and sheepishly terrifying production.

'Dancing Village: The Curse Begins' Is a Horror Movie With Poor Pacing

The pacing is like trudging through molasses, taking forever to execute the most basic depiction of what we presume will occur . An introductory explainer starts in the 1950s with a ritual dance sequence in which a girl is given a golden bangle and told to run away. Mila’s story then flashes to 1980, where she’s in possession of the same bangle. Badarawuhi is a radiating goddess-dressed being in both realities, showing no signs of aging, so assumptions of deity-like attributes are correct. Stamboel is painting by numbers through Mila’s confrontations with evil, but his brushstrokes are in the slowest motions. He tries to bring rhythmic elegance and dramatic emotionality to an overarching narrative about a cursed village, narrative vapors that are like inhaling anesthetics.

Nastier horror elements are reserved for a few choice scares , but Lele Laila ’s overwritten screenplay drowns out these spikes of excitement. Dancing Village: The Curse Begins is indeed about a village that must sacrifice unlucky souls to Badarawuhi, where they’re destined to boogie forever in a sacred realm. Shades of Luca Guadagnino ’s Suspiria remake get an Indonesian spin, as Badarawuhi selects her sacrifices while they follow choreographed routines amidst a circle of maniacally chanting villagers.

Stamboel does his best to conjure ghoulish traits in these sequences — eyes turn milky white as the girls enter Badarawuhi’s domain — but it’s nowhere near enthralling enough in terms of payoff . Exposition dumps overload filler interludes, and what’s meant to spike adrenaline barely registers a whimper. It’s so much movie with such little spectacularity.

The Visuals of 'Dancing Village: The Curse Begins' Are a High Point

Dancing Village: The Curse Begins earns its highest visual marks when Stamboel resembles his usual self . Once or twice, the production ramps horror thrills when a character tears rotten flesh from their cheeks in a possessed frenzy that upticks energies ever so slightly. Stamboel isn’t lunging for the jugular here, but it’s what the film desperately needs. Badarawuhi’s “dance of death” stranglehold may exhibit beautiful cinematography as a mass of women writhes and screeches in almost a hivemind unison. Still, it’s underwhelming given how mercilessly generic and limp the preceding acts manage to be.

It's a shame, but Dancing Village: The Curse Begins is a prequel that spends way too long busting the same moves horror fans have witnessed for decades . Stamboel’s direction lacks urgency, alarm, and invigoration. Pools filled with slithering serpents and brief yet aggravated hauntings remind us what Stamboel is usually capable of, but his overall execution reads as factory-assembled otherwise. If you haven’t feasted on Indonesia’s bounty of recent horror releases, don’t start here. Dancing Village: The Curse Begins is like elevator music in comparison.

Dancing Village: The Curse Begins has some strong visual moments though still falls far short of its potential.

When thrills reach a maximum, they?re solid.
The dance numbers offer a different kind of tension than horror fans might be used to.
Strong cinematography keeps camerawork at a premium.
It?s so, so, so, so sluggish.
Supporting characters barely feel necessary on the screen.
Where?s the vigorous horror that we?re used to from Stamboel?

Dancing Village: The Curse Begins is now playing in theaters in the U.S. Click below for showtimes near you.

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The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time.