ViewGuide

Created Apr 19, 2013 09:59PM PST • Edited Jun 04, 2022 04:05PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   Two great movies, one bad title, The Place Beyond the Pines could lose 20 ticks and still be twice typical Hollywood fare. Ryan Gosling & Bradley Cooper play two guys on opposite sides of the law, whose paths cross to lethal effect.

   Both are conflicted and sympathetic. Neither is untarnished in their own lives or in the lives they pass on.

   The movie is about bad choices made for understandable reasons, with the consequences of those choices manifested in the next generation. It’s also a terrific crime movie, a morally ambiguous cops-and-robbers archetypal vehicle for our scandalous age. When it comes to cops and robbers, Gosling plays the latter, a professional daredevil turned bank robber, Cooper an ambitious cop who gets a big boost taking him down.

   Each leading man gets roughly half the movie to himself, Gosling’s soulfully charismatic turn first, Cooper’s conflicted striver batting cleanup. Writer-director Derek Cianfrance pulls it off, deepening his story even more with a surprising coda that delivers a nifty twist.

   If you liked Ryan Gosling in Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine, be thankful that filmmaker and star reunite in (at?) The Place Beyond the Pines, even if for only half of a movie with too much of a bad title.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Ryan Gosling etches another physically impressive, emotionally inchoate performance into his oeuvre, though this time his tattoo artist deserves partial credit. Body art direction extraordinaire from Ben Shields!

   Bradley Cooper also proves himself a repeat actor of substance, here delivering a portrait of the politician as a young cop. Apparently Silver Linings Playbook wasn’t a fluke.

   Eva Mendes is lovely and touching as Gosling’s baby mama, while Mahershala Ali is stout as her husband. Ben Mendelsohn is quietly affecting as Gosling’s gentle partner-in-crime.

   On the Cooper side, Rose Byrne is modestly distinctive as his aspiring wife, while the great Harris Yulin is meaty as his distinguished Dad. Yulin is always meaty.

   Bruce Greenwood is somewhat less impressive than usual as a conflicted D.A., while the great Ray Liotta is slickly powerful as a shady Detective, natch.

   Finally, Emory Cohen & Dane DeHaan are terrific as teen sons who are blithly unaware of their families’ secrets, and who are perfectly capable of screwing up either way.

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    First of all, the motorcycle riding is top notch, especially three riders spinning inside a steel ball.

    It’s still crazy, the PhysioReality being two ticks into Surreal. You get two ticks into anything and it’s a serious thing.

    Yet, the film is way more buttoned down than Malick, which isn’t saying much, even though Derek Cianfrance’s glancing camera recalls the great impressionist.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Really Great 4.5

    15 stunt drivers.
    24 drivers

15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 3.0

    Lots of self-medicating going on, plus spectacularly bad decisions made. Sociopathic decisions, objectively observed, but understandable and kinda endearing, even if other people get menaced – Hollywood romantic nihilism to a tee.

17. Sex Titillating 1.9

18. Violence Brutal 3.5

19. Rudeness Nasty 3.7

21. Reality

    Glib 1.9

    Don’t get me started.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.8

23. Biological Glib 1.7

24. Physical Surreal 2.2