“The Place Beyond the Pines” is a generational crime drama from director Derek Cianfrance. He re-teams with his “Blue Valentine” star Ryan Gosling, who plays Luke. He’s a motorcycle daredevil rider who performs in a traveling carnival. Luke meets-up with former girlfriend Romina (Eva Mendes). He soon finds out that has a child with Romina named Jason who is now a one-year-old. While Romina has a current boyfriend helping take care of Jason, Luke wants to be part of his son’s life and provide for him, but since he makes very little money at his regular job he decides to start a new career – robbing banks.
Following a few successful robberies, things go bad for Luke. We are then introduced to police officer Avery Cross (played by Bradley Cooper). Avery is injured in the line of duty and becomes a hero for his actions. Avery’s wife Jennifer (Rose Byrne) doesn’t want him to return to front-line duty after his near-death experience, especially because they also have a one-year-old son. He gets a desk job and remains on the force, but things get complicated when Avery tries to do the right thing.
“Pines” is 2 hours and 20 minutes. It feels like four – which in this case isn’t great. I was with it for much of the time: the two stories are engaging, with interesting characters and fine performances and they intersect in a memorable way. But then, with about half an hour to go, the direction of the film changes, the screen becomes black and a title card comes-up announcing that the saga has flashed-forward 15 years. A third storyline begins, involving two high-school kids. This final act turns “Pines” into predictable “Lifetime” movie. The situations drag on, the messages and connections between the characters are pounded into your head along with the overly-melodramatic score. And, from a practical standpoint, none of older characters look like they aged 15 years.
Gosling’s performance is outstanding, highlighted by a scene in which he watches his son being baptized from the back of the church. But Cooper gives the best, most raw performance, once again proving (following his great work in “Silver Linings Playbook”) that he’s one of our finest current actors. Interestingly, even though Cooper and Gosling are the stars, they only share about 5 seconds of screen time together. Mendes and Byrne have their moments. Bruce Greenwood also pops-up in a small supporting role. And Ray Liotta’s basically playing Ray Liotta – a good guy on the outside who may or may not be real bad guy.
Cianfrance does a nice job of capturing the small city feel, often shooting tight to add to the realism. The bank robberies and one long police chase sequence are well done in frantic, hand-held style (though the chase scene nearly gave me a headache). “Pines” was shot almost entirely during the Summer of 2011 in and around Schenectady, NY., which is not far from where I live. Locals and people who know the area will be excited to see many familiar locations including the banks, a school, popular restaurants, and the General Electric headquarters.
“The Place Beyond the Pines” is rated R for language, violence, disturbing images and drug use (in that order I might add). It’s appropriate for teens and up. At times very effective, other times preaching (practically begging) to be heard, “Pines” is solid but not extraordinary.
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “The Place Beyond the Pines” gets a C+.