The Place Beyond the Pines (3013): Review

The Place Beyond the Pines is the newest installment of a movie drama with an enigma of a name that doesn't really tell you anything about the movie.  After seeing the film, I still do not see how the name has anything to do with the movie but that isn't really the point.  This movie is set in a middle of nowhere place and focuses on individual lives that sorta intertwine.
The Place Beyond the Pines is a liner movie that first follows Luke, played by Ryan Gosling, who is a motorcycle rider in a travel carnival.  When he comes back into a town on the circuit, he discovers that he has a young son (James) with Romina, played by Eva Mendez.  To try and be a part of his life he goes to robbing banks to try and have money.  It took me a while to realize that this part of the movie is set in the nineties and once I realized that it made a bit more sense.  Specifically the computers and reference to pagers.  In comes police officer Avery, played by Bradley Cooper, who is thrust into a sticky position with dirty cops and has to make a decision on what his life is going to be. This movie ends by coming full circle with the teenage sons of these two men struggling with dealing with their heritage.
This movie was definitely a drama with a focus on the characters and tries to develop the characters and although it was well acted by Gosling and Cooper I do not feel that the characters where really developed.  Not so much by not going into what there were experiencing but by there not really being much sense to the way they respond and struggle.  They are played  and presented one way, but then change their responses and go in a completely different direction.  At times, this was a bit predicable but at times I was like what is going on and is this going to be resolved or just end like some movies like this.
Overall the filming of this was gritty and trying to get you in the space of the characters but there was a moment of steady cam filming that I didn't like.  I think that this movie is only for people who like indie dramas.

My Rating: 2