An adventure story about wild horses in southern Africa couldn't drag a lot of folks into movie theatres. It's the stuff of Saturday-afternoon specials on the cute channel.

Running Free even sounds vaguely like another African-based nature film, Born Free. That fact might not be a marketing coincidence.

So what a surprise to discover that the Sergei Bodrov-directed yarn is sometimes thoughtful, occasionally smart and oddly exotic.

The feature can also pass as a part-history, part-geography seminar. Just don't tell the kids.

How so? Running Free uses fact as its wondrous essence. It deals with the desert-dwelling horses near the Namibian Skeleton Coast.

Scientists think they know why the horses ended up there, they just aren't sure how they survive in a no-man's land of rock, sand and hot-and-heavy winds.

Horses, not indigenous to the area, have apparently roamed this territory since the late 1900s, surviving amazingly enough on the vegetation during the brief rainy season.

Some of the original animals reportedly had German regiment insignias on their thighs, suggesting that a few, at least, had been abandoned by the German cavalry stationed in the area in 1915 when World War I was declared.

Running Free offers a variation on the real-life premise in its reel-life look at the Southern Africa region, circa 1914.

As a kid-friendly device, we see life and hear observations (voice-over provided by Lukas Haas) from Lucky, a colt that survives a gruelling boat trip with a herd of workhorses from Europe to a Southern African mine camp.

The colt eventually becomes an orphan in the unforgiving African landscape. It is an outcast as well, unable to find a friend or adjust to the horrible conditions of the German mining village.

Lucky for Lucky, the animal is taken in by a kind stable boy who befriends him and helps him survive. Most of the yarn focuses on how the boy and the colt bond in their formative years.

For tone and substance, know that Running Free screenwriter Jeanne Rosenberg teamed with Melissa Mathison to write The Black Stallion.

Director Jean-Jacques Annaud, who understands family adventures as defined by his film, The Bear, helped the movie get made and co-authored the Running Free story outline.

Bodrov received critical acclaim for his Prisoner Of The Mountain, an Oscar-nominated picture for best foreign-language feature.

Pros all of them, and the production shows it, despite the slow spots.

Generally, though, Running Free is good, and good for the kids who get to have fun during their life lesson on kindness and caring.

(This film is rated F)

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