The Place Beyond The Pines

[MacGuffin]

Release date: March 20, 2013

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Rose Byrne

Directed by: Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine)

Premise: A motorcycle stunt rider considers committing a crime in order to provide for his wife and child, an act that puts him on a collision course with a cop-turned-politician.

[polkablues]

This would be 1,000 times better is Gosling's character's name was "Rider".

[matt35mm]

Pretty fucking excited for this. It looks real good.

[Frederico Fellini]

That poster is hilarious...

[Neil]

More white people problems. 

[polkablues]

Get it, because in Drive, his name was... and in this one he rides a motorcycle, and...

Forget it.

[Kellen]

That poster is pretty bad but god damn this looks really good.

[HeywoodRFloyd]

I agree with you guys, this looks brilliant

[modage]

This is not good.

One of the most anticipated films at TIFF this year was undoubtedly "The Place Beyond The Pines," writer/director Derek Cianfrance's follow-up to his acclaimed breakthrough "Blue Valentine." The filmmaker reunites with his 'Valentine' star Ryan Gosling for an ambitious tale about crime, family and injustice. The film opens with a bravura tracking shot showing tattoo covered Luke (Gosling) flipping a switchblade open and closed inside a trailer before the camera tracks him outside, across a carnival fairground and into a tent where he mounts a motorcycle and races into a 360 cage with two other riders going full speed. The cinematography here by Sean Bobbitt ("Shame," "Hunger") is designed to make film geeks' jaws drop and it totally works.

After the show, Luke is approached by Romina (Eva Mendes), one of likely many women who he's probably had trysts with while rolling through town. But he finds out that he's fathered a child with her and decides to quit the carnival to raise his child with her. Things are complicated because Romina has a live-in boyfriend who doesn't care for Luke showing up and because the former stunt driver doesn't have a job or any money to take care of the family he's trying to reconnect with. Enter Robin (Ben Mendelson) a slithery sycophant who offers Luke the chance to earn some money by using his driving skills to rob a few banks. If seeing Gosling portray a stunt driver and man of few words who moonlights as a robber and plays surrogate dad to a woman and her young son who have now moved on with another man, it's because you live on planet Earth where you saw him do this last year.

Like his "Drive" character, Luke is a man of few words and so his emotions are expressed by the cigarettes dangling out of his mouth, his brooding, his motorcycle riding. After seeing the young actor go play such a range of roles last year ("Drive," "The Ides of March" and "Crazy Stupid Love") it's disappointing to see him leaning on the same tricks here. When his character is allowed a lighter moment — making a dog dance by lifting his arms up and walking him around — it's clearly a bit of improv. Gosling put his faith in his director but has unfortunately been let down. As things are motoring along with a string of successful bank robberies we're eventually introduced to Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), a good cop who ends up crossing his path.

For the first hour or so you would swear you were watching Cianfrance remake "Drive" as a melodrama but then the film switches gears and the focus shifts to Cross' character. The film then dives into the corruption and moral grey area in the police department. But the longer the film went on the less I believed in what I was seeing. The filmmaker is in love with 70's grit, heavy improvisation and tough guy posturing but it all amounts to a movie that doesn't have much to say. The women in the film — Mendes and Rose Byrne as Cross' wife — aren't given much to do besides suffer quietly beside their brooding counterparts. By the time the credits came up, I started to think of Cianfrance less as the next great indie hope and more as the next Joe Carnahan.

Cianfrance took a risk with the structure of the film, essentially offering an intimate epic in three parts but by the time the film started over for the third time I no longer had the patience to care. "Blue Valentine" managed to find some authentic moments among the improvisation that helped define the relationship but the present day stuff but that style is at odds with a genre film like this one. I won't completely write him off after this film but next time he's going to prove that he actually has something to say.

[Reel]

If seeing Gosling portray a stunt driver and man of few words who moonlights as a robber and plays surrogate dad to a woman and her young son who have now moved on with another man, it's because you live on planet Earth where you saw him do this last year.

This sentence makes no sense. There, my first playlist proofread.

( I think you forgot to say "sounds familiar" )

[modage]

Yep. Add those words. It's not a Playlist proofread though cause that's just from my Tumblr where I don't really give as much of a shit.

[jenkins]

I didn't think Drive was about a goddamn thing and also I think it's hard but necessary to disengage oneself from linearity when watching a movie (it's my #1 goal for my next Django Unchained viewing), like people in the future might not watch Drive first and they'll know we were wrong if we are wrong maybe the future is wrong, anyway. Looking forward to this.

[modage]

The similarities to "Drive" aren't why it's not good. They just don't help.

[jenkins]

Honestly kind of expect a ceiling on my appreciation for this one, I think Blue Valentine has a ceiling. I think Drive has a ceiling for that matter.

[72teeth]

More white people problems. 

I used to think this too, but do you know how many films we'd have to ignore if we considered that...?
Pretty much all of them.

As hard as it is, I'm learning the importance of "checking your politics at the door" and just accepting the reality of the story..

but im willing to hear more on the subject of "Politic-Curbing vs Enjoyment" though!
I even thought about starting a thread on this subject maybe a hundred times before but just never knew how get into the subject, or even what the hell i'd say beyond what i just said...
yeesh. blah... b'la... BE-LAW...

okay
on the subject of relevance: The Place Beyond the Pines actually looks like it could be good! or at least a much better story than Drive.. but nothing will ever be better than Drive's opening sequence.

and i loved Blue Valentine, and this cast, so maybe this is Gosling's way of making it up to me...

"Hey Teef, sorry for getting yr hopes with Drive, but here's take two with a better story and Ray Liotta!"