Plot
Set in 1898, the film concerns Prentice "Prent" Ritter (Robert Duvall), an aging cowboy who wants to buy a ranch of his own. To accomplish this, he agrees to transport 500 mustangs from Oregon to Wyoming, where he will sell them to the British Army. He recruits his estranged nephew, Tom Harte (Thomas Haden Church), to join him, hoping to reconnect with him on the ride.
What starts out as a simple horse drive is complicated when Prent and Tom encounter a particularly vile slaver who is transporting five Chinese girls to a lawless mining town, where they will face a life of prostitution and indentured servitude. After he tries to steal their money and horses and is killed, the girls are left to be dealt with. Compelled to do the right thing, Prent and Tom rescue the women and take them in, but as they continue their perilous trek across the frontier, they are tailed by a vicious gang of outlaws sent by the whorehouse madam who originally paid for the girls.
Read more about this topic: Broken Trail
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“Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
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And we despoil the unborn.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
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The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)