The Ride (1997)

I love this movie so much, I watched it a lot when I was younger but its been like 8 years since I've seen it because unfortunately we lost it. I would recommend it to anybody, its safe for kids, and inspirational for adults. This was literally one of the best movies I've seen in my lifetime along with 8 seconds, and cowboy up. Like me the cowboy movies, ha ha. But yeah for real guys don't miss a chance its a good movie. Im hoping this website will help me be able to see it again because I really am not to fond of the fact that its been so long, Me and my twin want to watch it super bad! So if you have a lot of young kids in your family this is definitely a safe movie and I think you guys will love it.

Looking at the other reviews posted for this film I can draw some conclusions. 1 - if you are religion-intolerant or filled with hatred for Christianity you will probably not like this movie. 2 - if #1 is your mindset then you probably don't like the sport of bull riding anyhow, which has a strong Christian presence, so you might as well find some something else more suited to you. By the way, despite what some (another reviewer) believe, bull riding is NOT a sport which is cruel to the animal. I've done it. The wives' tales abound but simply Are. Not. True.Now that I've gotten past that, I'll talk about the movie itself. This is not really a movie about bull riding, it's a movie about how a terminally ill boy causes a hard-luck bull rider to reassess his life and his attitudes about many things, including how he feels about God. Brock Pierce plays Danny O'Neill, the terminally ill boy who wants to learn to ride a bull, and is really quite good in this role. Michael Biehn plays the role of Smokey, a once-famous bull rider down on his luck. After being arrested for 'borrowing' someone's truck, he's sentenced to teach Danny to ride bull as 'community service'. Smokey originally wants nothing to do with the idea of teaching Danny to ride a bull - but it's either that or go to county jail, so he relents but is not happy at all about teaching Danny. While Danny is on the bucking machine, his hat comes off, revealing his chemo-caused bald head. Smokey learns now that Danny is very ill and might not survive. With this Smokey's shell begins to crack a bit though his initial reaction is that he can't go through with this, knowing that Danny may be dying. Eventually he changes his mind and continues teaching him. Along the way he can't help but notice the example Danny sets, though he himself resists any attempts to get him to see Christianity. Danny learns to ride the bull and in fact does so successfully at a junior rodeo. When Smokey finally goes to 'cowboy church' with Danny afterward, as he promised Danny he would, he finds he can't accept God. The idea of someone (Christ) dying for another doesn't ring true to him, and he's mad that if God exists, that he is letting Danny be so sick.Near the end of the movie, Smokey comes to realize that it is love which would make one person offer up their life in the stead of another, and in an emotional scene, out in a desolate wilderness, he tells God he would give up his life if he could, to save Danny.Bull riding is a heavily Christian sport, and if you're an atheist or not Christianity-tolerant you are not likely to like the sport itself and you will definitely not like this movie. Find something else more suited to your attitudes. For those who have some heart, for those who enjoy and understand that bull riding has a heavy Christian component, this is a movie you will enjoy.

Realizing that as a Christian based film it will follow certain parameters that you might not agree with personally, The Ride is still an enjoyable and dare I say inspiring film. The Ride stars Michael Biehn as an over the hill bullrider whose life gets turned around by a young fan who believes in him.Young Brock Pierce has to believe in something because he's about 14 years old and has terminal cancer. He wants to ride a bull in a rodeo before he dies and wants the best teacher around to show him the ropes.That would be Biehn who's so far down on his luck he steals the boys ranch trailer where Pierce is a guest and gets himself roughed up by some bookies he owes money to. He gets an unusual kind of community service, he's sentenced to the boys ranch run by Clarence Felder and Jennifer O'Neill and because young Mr. Pierce has prayed for it, Biehn assigned to make him a bullrider. Bullriders are the elite of the cowboys and they've even spun out on their own organization the Professional Bull Riders. As that organization does have a significant Christian contingent, I'm sure The Ride is a favorite film among the riders and the staff. It's not in the class of such rodeo films as Junior Bonner, The Lusty Men, or Arena, but it's not a bad film, given it doesn't have quite the production values of those Hollywood based films.Young Brock Pierce gives a most moving performance as the terminally ill kid. And he comes across as a real kid, not some child movie star. The adult cast members had some job keeping pace with him.As a fan of the PBR, I want to dedicate this review to a pair of young bullriders who have the right stuff to make it to the very top of the profession. The two Ryans, McConnel and Dirteater, sustained some serious injuries last season and young Mr. Dirteater is still on the mend for a second injury. I've got faith in both of them.

I was forced to watch this movie at school in 8th grade & I thought it was pretty boring. It was kinda sad that the Danny kid had cancer but you KNEW he was going to die and then Smokey would be all "Oh I see now! I think I'll be a Christian!". In order for Christian movies to actually get out there and be a major force people need to re think how they write movies, who they're writting it for. As Paul(I think it was paul) said "to those with the law I became as those with the law. to those w/o the law I became as those w/o the law..." you finish the rest.