With “Cowboys,” writer/director Anna Kerrigan makes a feature that plays like a short story, dealing with personal issues of parenthood and protection on a smaller scale of dramatic engagement. Kerrigan takes a look at a crisis of guardianship involving a desperate man who wants to do best by his child, but doesn’t understand how to achieve such graceful leadership during a time of domestic upheaval. Instead of immediately reaching for melodrama, Kerrigan creates a vivid depiction of fatherly desperation and motherly frustration with authentic concern for both parties. While this custody tale has a few sobering turns to give it some punch, “Cowboys” remains committed to inspecting complex feelings and displays of limited impulse control, creating an involving page-turner for the big screen. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com