"Orphan Horse" is a touching story about a cantankerous old horse trainer in Kentucky. He is mad at the world and despised in his community until he meets a young runaway child who is a natural horse whisperer. The story focuses on the bonding of the orphan child with an orphan horse, as well as the lessons learned by the old Scrooge.

The theme of orphans abounded in the film. A pair of cardboard-cutout villains have adopted a large brood of children, then abuse them like characters out of a Charles Dickens novel. Young Shelly runs away and sleeps in the barn of old Ben Crowley, who discovers right away that Shelly is a natural when it comes to training horses.

Jon Voight was perfect in the role of Ben Crowley. The rest of the cast was admirable in their roles. But the strength of the film was in the scenes with the horse, as trained by Ben and Shelley. The photography captured the verdant landscape of Kentucky and the quaintness of Midway, a town in which the train runs straight down the middle of Main Street.

The film's ending may have been a tad bit far-fetched, as a nice cop and Ben's daughter Caroline get married, then adopt the entire batch of abused kids. This was a Hallmark-style "feel good" movie that had some heart, but went overboard on the sentiment at the end.

This is a very good movie that I think the whole family can watch and enjoy, The acting was good. And the script was well written. Yes, I recommend it. James Welch, Henderson, Arkansas.

The two main characters, Jon Voight and Alexa Nisensen,play very well off each other and make you really like them. Voight's character is slightly reminiscent of Walter Matthau's in the movie Kotch. A superficially grouchy old guy who really cares a lot. One reviewer below seemed to dislike it because it was too cliched and full of tricks to tug at your emotions. He also complained that it had no subtitles. Subtitles?? It's in English, dude.

Yes, it may be "formulaic" in the tearjerker style, but after all, when you get down to it, don't most movies, or stories, follow some sort of type? And this one is very well done.