Continued from What was the Last Movie you watched? IV
Last edited by Numbers on April 3rd, 2016, 7:40 am, edited 4 times in total.
Continued from What was the Last Movie you watched? IV
Your issues with the film as a whole, are the exact reasons I expressed as well. Everything was done in a fine fashion, it just treaded very familiar territory and sunk down into predictability in the final act. Place Beyond the Pines gets the nod over this for me because it is far more ambitious, even with its flaws.Vader182 wrote:Mud-
Nichols is a fine filmmaker, and he delivered a film that hits most of the right notes in his love song to Huckleberry culture. Continuing the line of rave reactions to the cast, Tye Sheridan and Matthew McConaughey were the clear standouts, helped by the fact they have sensational chemistry on screen. That said, the characters are relatively basic archetypes that are maybe not so demanding, but the nuance written into them gives the film a real sense of character. That very sense of character might be the overriding success of the film, and by that I mean it's a well-told Southern Yarn populated by classic characters. The screenplay features a wonderful attention to detail that does elevate it beyond its routine trappings. For example, just when Ellis' illusions about life and people are in a downward spiral of let-downs and betrayal, the audience cuts to the first conversation with the 'bad guys' that didn't happen around any of our protagonists. Our vision of the film's been invaded by corruption as much as Ellis' has on life, forcing us to feel part of his journey. The film boasts many touches like that one, and it creates an atmosphere of sweetness and sincerity making it seem almost like a late-adaptation of a lesser known novel of a forgotten era. This is a special feeling.
However, and this is a harsh however so brace yourselves, the film can never pull itself out of predictability, and the final act includes a preposterous dues ex machina that nearly crippled a finale I hoped would be more emotionally satisfying. Additionally, there's a sloppiness to the motifs throughout-- the boat, a key early motif representing youthful ownership and maturation, was tossed aside without so much of any later allusion the boat once served as that powerful symbol. To some, that may seem nitpicky. That important symbols and motifs are dropped without any thematic resolution tells me the script needed another pass, maybe two, and with a commanding editor. To me, it's what the film hoped was one of its greatest assets, but couldn't pull it off. Even still, it remains a technically accomplished piece of cinema littered with charismatic performances that demand striking empathy and deserve it, and so far, it's one of the best couple films of the year. Like the earlier The Place Beyond the Pines, it could, and should, have been more.
B/B+
-Vader