“Write what you know.” So said Mark Twain once upon a time, or at least that’s the popular belief. One cursory look at this body of work reveals that the guy didn’t follow his own advice, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t advice worth following.
Clint Bentley, working alongside longtime collaborator and co-writer Greg Kwedar (see: 2016’s “Transpecos”), has done exactly that with his first feature directing gig, “Jockey,” an honest tribute to the men and women America’s horseracing industrial complex is built upon; Bentley’s father was a jockey, and having spent his childhood on racetracks, he’s intimately familiar with the lifestyle’s endless rigors.