Ben Mendelsohn

DVD/Stream of the Week: The Place Beyond the Pines

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Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes in THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES

According to the Old Testament, “the iniquity of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons”. Indeed, the successes and flaws of fathers, and the choices they make, impact their sons. And sons are often driven to be like or unlike their fathers, to match them or to surpass them. That is the territory explored in writer-director Derek Cianfrance’s intelligent drama The Place Beyond the Pines. (The story is set in Schenectady, New York, and the title refers to the Mohawk origin of the town’s name.)

At first, the story follows a familiar path for a crime drama – a motorcycle trick rider (Ryan Gosling) turns to bank robbery and has an encounter with a cop on patrol (Bradley Cooper). But the screenplay embeds nuggets about how both men feel about their fathers and how those feelings drive their actions. Both men have infant sons, and the father-son theme becomes more apparent as the story resumes fifteen years later with a focus on their own sons as teenagers.

I can’t remember a recent performance by Ryan Gosling that hasn’t been compelling, and he’s outstanding here, too. But the unexpected gem is Bradley Cooper, who shows us acting depth and range that we haven’t seen in his earlier work. Especially in scenes with a police psychiatrist and when forced to ask his father for advice, Cooper exposes the naked vulnerability of his character.

The Place Beyond the Pines is replete with excellent performances. Eva Mendes plays the mother of Gosling’s baby, and her performance stands up to Gosling’s – no small feat. Harris Yulin is superb as Cooper’s canny father. The wonderful Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom, Killing Them Softly) plays Gosling’s crime partner. Ray Liotta, who often plays shady characters, has never been so menacing.

I found the character of Cooper’s son to be very unsympathetic; he is supposed to be a kid messed up by his parents’ divorce and father’s inattention, and I think that the story would have worked better if it were easier to look past his obnoxiousness to appreciate his damaged nature. Still, it’s a film that I’m still pondering a day later. Cianfrance made Blue Valentine, the hard-to-watch but starkly authentic story of an unraveled relationship, an acting showcase for Gosling and Michele Williams. The Place Beyond the Pines is just as thoughtful and more accessible than Blue Valentine. Pines is an ambitious and mostly successful film.

The Place Beyond the Pines is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, GooglePlay and other VOD providers.

The Place Beyond the Pines: the sins of the fathers visited upon the sons

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Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes in THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES

According to the Old Testament, “the iniquity of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons”.  Indeed, the successes and flaws of fathers, and the choices they make, impact their sons.  And sons are often driven to be like or unlike their fathers, to match them or to surpass them.  That is the territory explored in writer-director Derek Cianfrance’s intelligent drama The Place Beyond the Pines.  (The story is set in Schenectady, New York, and the title refers to the Mohawk origin of the town’s name.)

At first, the story follows a familiar path for a crime drama – a motorcycle trick rider (Ryan Gosling) turns to bank robbery and has an encounter with a cop on patrol (Bradley Cooper).  But the screenplay embeds nuggets about how both men feel about their fathers and how those feelings drive their actions. Both men have infant sons, and the father-son theme becomes more apparent as the story resumes fifteen years later with a focus on their own sons as teenagers.

I can’t remember a recent performance by Ryan Gosling that hasn’t been compelling, and he’s outstanding here, too.  But the unexpected gem is Bradley Cooper, who shows us acting depth and range that we haven’t seen in his earlier work.  Especially in scenes with a police psychiatrist and when forced to ask his father for advice, Cooper exposes the naked vulnerability of his character.

The Place Beyond the Pines is replete with excellent performances.  Eva Mendes plays the mother of Gosling’s baby, and her performance stands up to Gosling’s – no small feat.  Harris Yulin is superb as Cooper’s canny father.  The wonderful Australian actor Ben Mendelsohn (Animal Kingdom, Killing Them Softly) plays Gosling’s crime partner.  Ray Liotta, who often plays shady characters, has never been so menacing.

I found the character of Cooper’s son to be very unsympathetic; he is supposed to be a kid messed up by his parents’ divorce and father’s inattention, and I think that the story would have worked better if it were easier to look past his obnoxiousness to appreciate his damaged nature.  Still, it’s a film that I’m still pondering a day later.  Cianfrance made Blue Valentine, the hard-to-watch but starkly authentic story of an unraveled relationship, an acting showcase for Gosling and Michele Williams.  The Place Beyond the Pines is just as thoughtful and more accessible than Blue Valentine. Pines is an ambitious and mostly successful film.

Killing Them Softly: almost as good as a Sopranos rerun

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In Killing Them Softly, a low-level gangster gets two hapless losers to hold up a poker game that is protected by the mob.  The mob, of course, brings in an enforcer to put things right.   Perhaps Killing Them Softly would have been a great gangster movie in the 60s, before Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and David Chase raised the bar.  It was a big hit at Cannes, but that crowd may not be used to watching The Sopranos.

We know what is going to happen in the plot.  Fortunately, we have some excellent actors, led by Brad Pitt in a character role as the ruthless and nihilistic mob enforcer.  Pitt’s enforcer brings in a trusted colleague, a hit man from New York (James Gandolfini) to help him out – but the hit man is emotionally damaged from a betrayed romance and can only focus on drinking and whoring.  Richard Jenkins plays an unusually squeamish mid-level manager in the mob.  Scoot McNairy (one of the “house guests” in Argo) and Ben Mendelsohn (the most psychopathic criminal in Animal Kingdom) are especially good as the doomed hold-up men.

As good as the cast is, there’s just not much here.  An attempt to intertwine a thread about the 2008 economic collapse and Presidential election is a misguided device that only serves as a distraction.