'Mustang' of different color

Filmed mostly in western Nevada, not far from where Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe philosophized about “mustang blood” and the changing American landscape in “The Misfits,” the new film “The Mustang” marks the feature directorial debut of the French actress, writer and director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre. It’s solid if dramatically predictable work, part prison picture, part horse story.

Big, bull-like Matthias Schoenaerts, best known to American audiences for “Bullhead” and “The Danish Girl,” brings formidable presence to the role of Roman Coleman, a tight-lipped convict doing time for a crime left unspecified until a strategically placed monologue late in the picture. A recent transfer from another facility, Roman first appears in a “preclassification” meeting with a prison psychologist (Connie Britton). It’s clear from the start this man, as he himself acknowledges, is “no good with people.” Even the way he breathes under pressure, he sounds more like feral animal than redemption-worthy man.

Assigned to outdoor duty, Roman soon joins the Wild Horse Inmate Program overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. Mustangs captured for the program (a real program, by the way) are turned over to the inmates. Once they’re broken in and sufficiently trainable, they move to public auction.

“The Mustang” sets up its narrative so that Roman and the horse he names Marcus recognize each other’s similarities instantly. The audience is right there with them. As the program’s wizened horse trainer (Bruce Dern, enlivening some generic dialogue) pushes the prisoners toward greater understanding and patience, Roman butts up against his own fears. (At one startling point, the prisoner’s frustration bursts into a physical assault on the horse.)

Gradually, the relationship improves. Roman’s periodic visits with his pregnant teenage daughter (Gideon Adlon), who wants to sell the family house back in Bakersfield, California, take on a more forgiving light. The director’s screenplay, which de Clermont-Tonnerre wrote with Mona Fastvold and Brock Norman Brock with help from Benjamin Charbit, sketches a few complications for Roman, notably a cellmate (Josh Stewart) who snorts the horse tranquilizer ketamine and lurks as a dangerous reminder of the prison’s criminal underworld. Jason Mitchell of “Mudbound” does what he can with the role of an easygoing fellow prisoner and horse trainer who, as it becomes increasingly clear, has “expedient scapegoat” written all over his face.

The last year has been exceptional for screen equines. “Lean on Pete” (very good) and “The Rider” (great) dealt with damaged young men living very close to the land, and to the animals in their life. Dwelling in a similar but more claustrophobic realm of poetic realism, “The Mustang” necessarily confines Roman to a series of tight, suffocating, fenced-in spaces. Schoenaerts, a native of Belgium and an established European star, uses his size and rolling gait for easy intimidation. Yet in the film’s sharpest scene, his physicality diminishes before our eyes as Roman and his fellow inmates answer the prison psychologist’s question about the time span between thought and action — the action being the crime that put these men behind bars.

De Clermont-Tonnerre’s exceptional 2014 short film “Rabbit” provided the template for “The Mustang.” Photographed on Rikers Island, “The Rabbit” concerns a female prisoner presented with the newfound, uneasy responsibility of a so-called “therapy bunny.” Such therapeutic partnerships between animals and prisoners have intrigued de Clermont-Tonnerre for years. She shot “The Mustang” with a cast including several ex-inmates and horse program veterans in and around a decommissioned Nevada state prison in Carson City.

The director workshopped her script at the Sundance labs for several years before completion. You have to wonder if a messier but more interesting version of “The Mustang” didn’t get left behind in some of the rewrites. The film’s impressive as far is it goes, and Schoenaerts is a fine actor with considerable emotional resources. But it’s exceedingly tidy in its beat-by-beat developments, and outside Roman and Marcus, the supporting character roster struggles to make an impression.

And that won’t matter to many viewers. It’s easy to root for the hard-won friendship at the heart of things here. The wordless, wary shots of Roman and Marcus sussing each other out, struggling with their impulses, express what the story needs most, without clunky metaphor or boilerplate dialogue.

"The Mustang"

**½

Rating: R for language, some violence and drug content

Running time: One hour, 36 minutes

"The Mustang"

2½

Rating: R for language, some violence and drug content

Running time: One hour, 36 minutes