There's a new cowboy pic in town and its lined up a stellar cast of veteran western actors. Yellowstone's Forrie J. Smith, known for playing old-timer ranch hand Lloyd Pierce on the hit Paramount series, has boarded Ride, an upcoming crime drama set in the world of amateur rodeo.
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Billed as a modern western with a social commentary bite, Ride follows a small-town Texas family of bull riders forced to make an impossible decision. The cast is led by ex-child rodeo star C. Thomas Howell (SEAL Team) and Annabeth Gish (The Haunting of Hill House), Deadline reports. Smith is set to play patriarch Al, a retired bull rider.
Forrie J. Smith as Lloyd Pierce in Yellowstone Season 5. (Paramount)
Ride marks writer-actor Jake Allyn's directorial debut. Best known for his 2020 take on the western genre, No Man's Land, Allyn will also star in the film, which he co-wrote with actor Josh Plasse (Grey's Anatomy). Set in the fading rodeo town of Stephenville, Texas, known as the "Cowboy Capital," Ride is one part heist flick, one part stirring meditation on the cowboy's place in America today.
The logline reads:
Desperate to raise money for his daughter's cancer treatment and met with a faceless hospital system that asks for insurance before medical records, former bull rider John Hawkins (Howell) must partner with his estranged son and rising bull rider Peter (Allyn) on a money heist. They get it done in cowboy fashion but are left murderers, with only the eldest retired bull rider in the family, Al (Smith), to turn to. But when John's wife, Sheriff Monica Hawkins (Gish), takes on the case, John and Peter must dodge their own family, while Monica works a case that would send her husband to prison and her daughter home to die.
Currently shooting in Tennessee, Ride will feature some familiar Nashville locations, including music venues, working ranches, and live rodeos. According to writer-director Allyn, rodeo will act as a powerful metaphor for getting the film's message across.
"Bull riding is the only sport that you always lose," Allyn told Deadline. "The bull always bucks you off eventually. It's just a matter of how long you stay on, and how many times you get back up. The same is true in life, and that's what this movie reflects."
