Rating: 
Summary: Once you start it, you'll have to finish
Review: I made the mistake of starting this movie late one evening, with the intention of only watching it for a while and finishing it later. Didn't work out that way...I found myself glued to the spot on the floor where I had sat after popping the tape in the VCR. The acting was simply incredible, although one of the aspects most fascinating to me was the transformation between play and screenplay and the different ways in which the same story was told. Deep stuff and a little freaky, but definitely an extraordinary piece of work that leaves you thinking.
Rating: 
Summary: Not as good as the stage version
Review: I remember looking forward to the release of this movie, only to be initially disappointed. I had seen the stage play here in Detroit when the NYC company first went on tour - it was a theater experience that totally blew me away. The "horses" were actors wearing black body suits, and each had a custom made "horse outfit" - a metal frame suggesting a horse's head and hooves. The final scene in Act 1, where the lad steals off in the night and rides naked was incredible, with the "horses" disengaging a stage gadget which allowed them to spin that part of the stage where he was riding the steed. If ever you have a chance to see this version live, do so by all means.The major disappointment with the film was Richard Burton, in one of his last roles. He was a good actor, but I was ever reminded that this was just "Richard Burton" acting a role - I would have much preferred an unknown to play Dysart. The movie is gripping, and disturbing. I remember purchasing a copy of the play and quoting from it in a paper I wrote for an abnormal psych class I had in college (got an A!). See this for the great drama it is.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent Extraordinary
Review: Magnificent performances by Colin Firth and Richard Burton. Extraordinary !
Peter Schaefer takes modern society and modern psychology to task. Passion, Pain, and Worship is what is most lacking according to Schaefer. He makes the case that passion and pain are inextricably linked. And that the greatest danger for the individual in our modern world is boredom and sterility.
Rating: 
Summary: Wilbur and Mr. Ed were never like this.
Review: Peter Shaffer's weird stage play makes for an even more oddball affair as a film. Most casual fans of director Sidney Lumet ("Network", "Dog Day Afternoon", "Prince Of The City") probably won't believe that he made this one until they watch the credits themselves. Richard Burton heads the all-British cast as a psychiatrist probing the mind of a stableboy (Peter Firth) who has committed an almost unspeakable act of animal cruelty in a bizarre fit of psycho-sexual pique. As you may have guessed already, a good portion of the film takes place in the doctor's office, with the requisite "flashbacks" telling us the story behind the patient's mental meltdown. Burton's rich, cathedral voice, Firth's twitchy performance and a fair amount of unabashed sexuality (fans of Jenny Agutter will definitely want this one for thier, uh, collection...) should keep most viewers from drifting off, but the film is probably too static and "stagey" for today's typical attention spans.
Rating:
Summary: Doctor must help a teenage boy with a horse and sex.
Review: Richard Burton narrates to the audience and stars as a psychiatrist who is to help an english teenage boy, Alan (Peter Firth), who seems to be out of touch of reality. He loves horses and dreams of horses. Alan must see the psychiatrist every day and make progress or he will end up in a mental hospital. He is not allowed to watch television according to his parents, but remebers specific jingles and repeats them often. His behavior at times is erratic. Dr. Martin Dysart had odd dreams of his own and must get to the root of Alan's problem. Alan will relay to Dr. Dysart his own memories as a child and his obsession for a horse. ADULTS ONLY! Includes full frontal male and female nudity and sexual situations. Cast also includes Joan Plowright, Colin Blakly and Kate Reid. Richard Burton and Peter Firth were both nominated for an Academy Award.
Rating:
Summary: Doctor must help a teenage boy with a horse and sex.
Review: Richard Burton narrates to the audience and stars as a psychiatrist who is to help an english teenage boy, Alan (Peter Firth), who seems to be out of touch of reality. He loves horses and dreams of horses. Alan must see the psychiatrist every day and make progress or he will end up in a mental hospital. He is not allowed to watch television according to his parents, but remebers specific jingles and repeats them often. His behavior at times is erratic. Dr. Martin Dysart had odd dreams of his own and must get to the root of Alan's problem. Alan will relay to Dr. Dysart his own memories as a child and his obsession for a horse. ADULTS ONLY! Includes full frontal male and female nudity and sexual situations. Cast also includes Joan Plowright, Colin Blakly and Kate Reid. Richard Burton and Peter Firth were both nominated for an Academy Award.
Rating:
Summary: Weird.. weird..and even weirder
Review: The first time I saw Equus, I was gripped and deeply moved by the film's themes and uses of the horses as gods. It combines a young boy's passion with a religious bent (possible inherited from his mother) and twists both into a fantastic and sometimes deeply disturbing storyline, both played to perfection by Peter Firth; the young Alan Strang and Richard Burton; Dysart the psychiatrist. I strongly reccomend this particular play to anyone willing to change their perspective on the world and religion.
Rating:
Summary: Nice for certain things, but not a complete success
Review: The script is full of ideas and keeps one awake and thinking, and Richard Burton's rich development of the character is an intellectual feast. There are also many ideas which are wonderfully presented and connected with each other purely through visual storytelling. From that point of view it's a much better film than I had expected. On the down side, Joan Plowright is overrated by general standards - perhaps it was a highlight for her, but in comparison with Burton she is emotionless. Peter Firth's performance is terribly overrated: his approach to the role is horribly external and stagey, complete with some stock 'stick-walk' for the mental patient he portrays, which is just maddening. His most marketable contribution to the film is visible in the many scnes he performs 'al fresco'. This movie is definately worth buying - because it deservs repeated viewings. It's a pity the character of Alan (Peter Firth) isn't better portrayed: he's just by far too stagey and deliberate. Buy it for the writing, buy it for Burton, but know it's flawed.
Rating: 
Summary: Equus = no good...
Review: The stableboy is
a monster who should have been put to death for his acts. The film is a horrible waste of time, and yet another example of the worst of the '70s attempts to show how a film adaptation of a novel and stage play can be put to the screen and still manage to rope in suckers and even win some awards. These types of films generally suck plain and simple, but this is among the notoriously worst of its kind. Would you care about the boys psychological make-up and rehibilitation if he had done this cruel act to a group of children? I think not. Richard Burton is better served in films such as 'Candy' and 'Bluebeard' - Stick to comedies, horror films and period pieces and forget this bogged down, heavyweight crappola! Sentimental poop! God rest Richard Burton's soul for this one!!
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Rendition of the Shaffer Play
Review: This film has often been derided as lacking the emotional impact that the stage production contained (much of it deriving from the unconventional staging of the piece), but I think these criticisms are often misguided and, frankly, wrong. The story is as strong as in the stage play: a burned-out psychiatrist (Richard Burton) takes on the case of a stable-boy (Peter Firth) who has blinded six of the horses in his care, and through his treatment of the boy, further exacerbating the psychiatrist's sense of detachment from the primitive side of his personality --a side he longs to be reunited with. In the process, we see how the twisted interrelation between sex, religion, guilt, parental love (or the absence thereof) and idolization (in most of its forms) combine to motivate an otherwise good teenager to commit such an act of cruelty. The acting is absolutely flawless. Burton gives what may be the best performance of his career (and one which was inexplicably denied the Oscar) as the psychiatrist; Firth is his match as the inscrutable stable boy; and Jenny Agutter is superb as the young woman who unwittingly sets the final steps of the story in motion. As for the complaints about the "staginess" of the film, Sidney Lumet's direction does a marvelous job at highlighting the contrasting personalities of Burton's and Firth's characters -- Burton's monologues shot in extreme close-up, highlighting the claustrophobic isolation into which his character has retreated; Firth, by contrast, given more leeway with the camera, only mirroring Burton's claustrophobia in those scenes in which his Freudian/religious guilt imposes itself upon him. In short, Peter Shaffer's play is astounding material and it clearly survives its transition to film. Not a happy film, by any means, but certainly a brilliant one.
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