The Electric Horseman

The Electric Horseman is a romantic film starring Jane Fonda and Robert Redford. The film was directed by Sydney Pollack. Robert Redford plays Sonny Steele, a former championship rider on the rodeo circuit who has retired. Sonny is now working for a large corporation making personal appearances to sell a box of cereal. He is forced to ride horses in public wearing elaborate costumes. One day, Sonny is in Las Vegas to make an appearance and he discovers that the horse he is supposed to ride has been drugged. The horse was drugged in order to make sure it wasn’t too upbeat or wild when Sonny tried to ride it. Sonny is very upset by the horse’s condition and he makes a radical decision. He decides that he will release the horse back into the wild so it can heal and run with the rest of the wild horses. In order to do so, Sonny has to sneak away from Vegas with the horse. Sonny finds it difficult to get away from all his commitments. Hallie Martin, played by Jane Fonda, is a television news reporter who is determined to get to the bottom of this story and figure out why Sonny has run off with the horse. Eventually Hallie finds Sonny and she decides to follow him and the horse into the desert. Hallie begins to fall in love with Sonny while she is with him. Sonny is being chased by Vegas authorities, namely because now he is a horse thief. Hallie begins to lose her reporter’s objectivity and decides to help Sonny flee. During their adventure, Sonny begins to grow and realize that he, as a man, is as lost as the horse. Hallie also undergoes some changes and she learns to relax and be at peace with herself.