A Film A Day: The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)

Genre

Director

Country

Cast

Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Ray Liotta, Ben Mendelsohn, Rose Byrne, Mahershala Ali, Bruce Greenwood, Dane DeHaan, Emory Cohen, Harris Yulin, Robert Clohessy, Olga Merediz

Storyline

A motorcycle stunt rider (Ryan Gosling) turns to robbing banks as a way to provide for his lover and their newborn child, a decision that puts him on a collision course with an ambitious cop (Bradley Cooper) navigating a department ruled by a corrupt detective.

Opinion

A few years ago I tried to watch this film, but I gave up after 10 minutes. I should have left that way. The Place Beyond The Pines is a way too ambitious attempt at making a family drama, that turned out to be not a bad film, but three bad films.

The trailer for this film is very misleading, because there’s a lot more going on than Ryan Gosling being a badass. In fact, there are three stories, each with its own main characters, that despite being linked to the same event, the all thing seems forced.

The film starts pretty good – the first story is absorbing, Gosling’s character is developed, and the chasing scene is quite good -, but when the motorcycle rider gets killed, the film dies with him.

The film doesn't find its center, the dirty cops topic is not well-developed as it deserved to be – or as I was hoping -, and there's to much cod-psychology about fathers and sons.

The acting could have been a lot better. Despite the great performances by Ryan Gosling as the motorcycle rider, and Eva Mendes as Romina, the rest of the cast is just disappointing - I was expecting more from Bradley Cooper, who didn’t even successfully manage to cry.

Last words. Derek Cianfrance should have stuck to making a solid thriller, and if only he wasn't trying so hard to be a great filmmaker, maybe the result would have been better that this.