The Place Beyond The Pines Review

Errr....what are we looking at ah?

The Place Beyond The Pines Review – First thing that drew me was the thought of watching Ryan Gosling in a blonde hair as a bike rider. Next, it was Eva Mendes because it’s been quite a while since I saw her in big screen. Ok…Bradley Cooper also was part of attraction lar. I read through few reviews and some of it was ok so despite knowing it was two hours and twenty minutes long I convinced myself I could sit till the end credit.

Yup...let's do another 'indie' flick...

The film was not half-bad, in fact it was not that bad at all, what almost killed me was the pace of the story was too slow for my liking. After about halfway I couldn’t wait to leave the cinema. I kept looking at my watch thinking that this flick was one of the longest I had to sit through.

The movie starts off with ‘Handsome Luke’ (Ryan) portrayed as a travelling biker in carnival who have a fling with Romina (Eva) and ends up having his son without Luke's knowledge. By the time he finds out, Romina have already moved on and lives with another guy. Feeling obligated to ‘provide’ for his family, Luke resorts to criminal way of robbing banks to buy things for his ‘family’ but as it’s been said...‘sepandai-pandai tupai melompat, akhirnya jatuh ke bumi juga’.

Happy family???

Luke’s destiny gets sealed by Avery Cross (a very out-of-high-school-looking Bradley Cooper) and the story moves focus to how Cross uses his cop ‘skills’ to climb up the ladder into becoming a big shot. He has his own problem in the form on his delinquent son who somehow befriends Luke’s son. As fate would have it, this cause conflict in the whole relationship between the father and son and the friend.

Fate of coincidence?

Ryan was all macho wacho as a fast riding biker while Eva was under-utilized. Bradley however shined his way as a cunning cop aiming for higher position. The dudes who played Luke and Cross sons was well done by upcoming talent. Some of the supporting casts also did well. What more can I say? It is good movie, just make sure you watch it at a right time. Or else you will be moaning and counting for the moment till the end credit rolls.