Unbranded review – four Texans, 16 mustangs and a wild journey across the west

Navigating the US with mustangs as sole transport provides some breathtaking scenery, even if it does look a bit like a Marlboro ad without cigarettes

This good-natured, Kickstarter-funded documentary shows the adventures of four young guys from Texas as they attempt to travel 3,000 miles on horseback from the Mexican to the Canadian border, using only "adopted" wild horses, or mustangs, which they have trained themselves. We get to see some beautiful country along the way, and there's some pertinent thinking on the levels of intervention needed in managing America's wild horse population. Unbranded does sometimes look a little bit glossy and self-congratulatory, like a 105-minute commercial for itself, or indeed a Marlboro ad without cigarettes. One argument the young men have looks a bit staged, to create drama, though there is one very real and disconcerting disagreement they finally have about all crossing the finish line together: a really strange moment that the movie doesn't fully investigate or explain. At any rate, there are some breathtaking landscapes in Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana.