The Place Beyond the Pines

Just as raw and formally austere as the last Eastwood films (Gran Torino, Mystic River), or Haggis's Crash. Here, in addition, with a script and concept of certain scenes (mise-en-scène, lighting, editing, music) that are at a higher level than the examples mentioned above (similar to Fincher's Seven or Zodiac), with a fantastic atmosphere and above all a brilliant script that has no equal within the genre. Dense, suspenseful, completely unpredictable, without a single misstep, which is truly unheard of in today's mainstream Hollywood. And consider that it is very difficult to come up with something original given the number of films being made today. I must say that I have never seen anything like this before. If in Drive it was Ryan Gosling's cool jacket, here Gosling himself was cool and it doesn't end there, quite the opposite, which is one of the top moments of the film that you will get. It's a pity the ending is a bit weaker. I expected a bigger showdown. (08/24/2014)

After a while, I thought Clint had pulled off this story split many times better in Changeling. If the whole movie had fleshed out the first part and been based on "Bradley chasing Ryan", it might have felt a lot more coherent in the end result. I'm not saying that the other two really separate stories don't make sense, but I had a definite problem with their delivery. If you’re supposed to take away from this that "all your shit will catch up with you one day anyway, and you can't escape it no matter how hard you try to be nice and human" then maybe let them, but for me it doesn't represent any kind of wisdom or "evocative movie experience". Blue Valentine was more intimate, more evocative, and a lot less intrusive. (08/18/2013)

The mood of this film is in the spirit of Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River mixed with Ben Affleck’s The Town, but slower, more extensive, more attentive to the characters and with more layers of thought. It is a powerful film about people, actions and consequences, responsibility, guilt and forgiveness. The viewer’s engagement in the story deepens with every tenminute increment. Its music is unconventional, even hypnotic – the silent chants used as the background to the last quarter of the film lend it, in the context of a culminating relationship collision, the fateful depth that Terrence Malick’s recent films only pretend to have by using similar chants. I was looking forward to seeing Ryan Gosling, but Bradley Cooper overshadowed him by delivering his best, most intimate performance to date. I am surprised that producer Sidney Kimmel didn’t do more lobbying at the Academy, because this is an independent American film at the level of Sergio Leone. (04/07/2014)

An Iñárritu-esque movie in the form of a Kinder Surprise; it also offers three (un)similar things in one package. Tremendously powerful in many aspects; from the details like "wearing shabby t-shirts inside out" to building a dense atmosphere. What spoils the enthusiasm somewhat is the third act, which is not bad in itself, but still crouches deep in the shadow of the opening two acts. It is schematic, predictable, and somewhat didactic. Which, since it is meant to close the circle, is a little unfortunate. Quite a little bit. (03/16/2013)

I have with this movie the same problem I had with Cianfrance’s previous one, Blue Valentine. Once again, the director-screenwriter attempts to present a broad indie social drama, but he’s unable to convincingly deliver and defend any of the conflicts that make the basis of the plot. As a result, the whole thing feels like disingenuous and manipulative stuff that wants to look important, and that’s all there is to it. In the first act it still works somehow, thanks mainly to Gosling’s charisma. Things start to grind in the second act, and the last act is, well, almost ridiculous. I’m very disappointed, I was really looking forward to it, but it seems that with Derek we don’t see eye-to-eye. 5/10 (05/10/2013)