Line #11 Film/BrokenTrail


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/broken_trail.jpg]]
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3	''Broken Trail'' is a made-for-TV movie/miniseries directed by Creator/WalterHill and first broadcast in 2006 on Creator/{{AMC}}. It is, to a large extent, a vehicle for Creator/RobertDuvall, who gets to play his favorite role, that of the grizzled, world-weary but honorable cowboy. The film is thus considered part of Duvall's informal [[TheWestern Western]] trilogy, whose first two instalments were ''Literature/LonesomeDove'' and the Creator/KevinCostner-directed feature movie ''Film/OpenRange''.
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5	The story takes place in 1898. Duvall, as old rogue Print Ritter, and Creator/ThomasHadenChurch, as his nephew Tom Harte, are driving Oregon ponies to Wyoming, where they are going to be sold to a horse trader working for the British army, who need mounts for the Boer War in South Africa and are paying top dollar. On their way, they come across five young Chinese women who have been sold into prostitution and are being taken to their new owner, a ruthless madam in a mining town. Ritter and Harte rescue the women from their sordid fate and decide to take them to safety.
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8	!!Contains examples of:
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10	* AbhorrentAdmirer: Bywaters has a thing for Nola, but not the kind of thing that might make her a MoralityPet. She's scarred physically and emotionally from his past abuses.
11	%%* AnyoneCanDie
12	* BerserkButton: Neither Tom nor his Uncle Print take kindly to men who sexually assault women of any race.
13	* BigDamnHeroes: A couple times. Thomas Church is in all of them, and on one occasion shoots off a man's thumbs.
14	* CattleDrive: With horses rather than cattle, but apart from that the trope is played straight.
15	* ChangedMyMindKid: One of the ''villains'' plays with this trope in the climax, running away the instant the Bywaters gang is at a disadvantage but then returning to help his comrades several seconds later, only to make a failed attempt to flee again once all of his companions are dead.
16	* ChineseLaunderer: Lung Hay.
17	* CoolOldGuy: Print. Come on, he's Robert Duvall, after all.
18	* {{Cowboy}}: Ritter and Harte.
19	* DeadlyDistantFinale: The epilogue references the deaths of Prent, Nola, and the two youngest Chinese Girls. The first two die of natural causes, while the others die in the UsefulNotes/CulturalRevolution (although since that happens almost seventy years after the movie's events, they still lived long and fulfilling lives).
20	* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler:Number Four gets raped once too many.]]
21	* FairForItsDay: InUniverse Tom and Print's treatment of Lung Hay's scalp laceration. Their discussion of "how a Chinaman values his lid", in context, shows that they are genuinely sensitive to Chinese cultural values (at least the ones they know of) and want to make sure that he won't be left with a potentially-undignified scar.
22	** For that matter, Tom always addresses him as "Mister Lung Hay." It's clear that Lung is not used to being respectfully addressed by a white man.
23	* FatBastard: "Big Rump" Kate provides a female example. Dear God, does she ever.
24	* {{Fingore}}: Tom blows a rapist's thumbs off with his Colt Peacemaker.
25	* FourIsDeath: Because the cowboys can't pronounce the women's real names, they name them "Number One" to "Number Five". When the women realize this, "Number Four" objects to being given an unlucky number for a name. One of the other women eventually accepts to be "Number Four", and she does so because [[DeathSeeker she fully expects a tragic fate to befall her]], which indeed it does.
26	* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Nola.
27	** Averted by "Big Rump" Kate, the ruthless head prostitute who originally bought the Chinese girls. A Chinese local assures the heroes it would be kinder to just go ahead and slit the girls' throats rather than leave them in the same town as Kate.
28	* MadeOfIron: Bywaters and his thugs beat Prentice Ritter savagely and are about to graduate from beating to ColdBloodedTorture, while not being shy about [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil what they plan to do to the girls]]. As soon as Tom gets their attention, Print picks up a blacksmith's hammer and turns Bywaters' skull inside-out with it.
29	* MeaningfulName: Likely unintentional. "Ritter," the main character's surname, is the German term for "knight."
30	* OutOfFocus: Novice cowhand Heck is doing some chores offscreen for quite a bit of the three-hour miniseries and probably has less than ten minutes' worth of dialogue (although he makes the most of a lot of the scenes he does have).
31	* PapaWolf: Prentice Ritter is a very nice guy, but don't ''[[BewareTheNiceOnes ever]]'' [[BerserkButton threaten the people he cares about]].
32	* RapeAsDrama
33	* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: When a drunk severely beats Lung Hay and rapes [[{{Woobie}} Number Four]], Tom leaves him crippled for life. Print later beats the BigBad to death [[CruelAndUnusualDeath with a hammer]] for threatening to rape Nola (again) and the girls.
34	* SceneryPorn: The camera can't get enough of the American West's wide-open vistas.
35	* TheSheriff: Once, in passing. He doesn't do much, mostly because he's hunting Ed Bywaters, but has no notion of where to look for him.
36	* SoftSpokenSadist: Bywaters is a psychotic murderer, rapist, and thief who never raises his voice.
37	* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue
38	* WouldHurtAChild: Ed "Big Ears" Bywaters is explicitly clear about ''exactly'' what he and his thugs intend to do to the girls. [[TheCavalry While Tom deals with the thugs]], Print [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown makes it even clearer]] that [[PapaWolf he will not let that happen]].
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Context Film / BrokenTrail