The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)

I turned off this movie before it finished. Completely lost interest. I thought it was about Ryan Gossling's character but then it moved to a different character. It was shortly after I lost complete interest. Really seemed like two movies in one, with completely different plots. Don't waste your time on this, not sure why it deserved some good ratings.I gave it 2 stars for acting. It's not often I turn off a movie before it finishes, even some B movies...I watch til the end. Do yourself a favour and don't watch it. Boring and not entertaining at all.

Director Derek Cianfrance manages to both incredibly raise and set the new bar for any future film or filmmaker within the crime and thriller genre with his intelligently dramatic, unconventionally enchanting and emotionally piercing (2013) crime thriller "THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES." Director Cianfrance's uniquely brilliant crime epic eloquently interconnects into a three-act saga where actions have the gravest of consequences and the fate of each and every character is tragically out of their own hands. The sophisticated suspense and consequential direction impressively displays and successfully proves that a film can be just as or on some occasions even more powerfully gripping then your typical Michael Bay blockbuster action film. The lead actors Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper once again prove their rightful place among HOLLYWOOD'S ELITE and are displaying now more than ever before that they're the new DiCaprio and Pitt of the next great acting generation.

Sometimes, you never know what the actions of now will create for the future. The Place Beyond the Pines is an incredible film in that it's story goes in one direction and then swerves into another, only to come back around at the end. Not unlike a motorcycle ride. I was thrown for a loop, in the best kind of way. We follow Ryan Gosling's character, a criminal carny performer desperate to provide for his newborn child by robbing banks. He is stopped in his tracks by Bradley Cooper. Cooper kills him, but the guilt he is left with him nearly gets him in the end. He lives with the grief of leaving a little boy fatherless in comparison to his own son, who will never know that his father is a murderer. What happens then is even more interesting. The two sons, a generation apart, form a bond with drugs and alcohol, and both end up repeating the sins of their fathers. One becomes a thug, especially when he realizes that his best friend's father killed his dad all those years ago.What started out for me as shaky territory (love story between Gosling and Mendes) turns into something of a masterpiece that most film lovers overlooked five years ago. A truly captivating drama, with real, raw performances from everyone involved and an intriguing way to tell a tragic story.

The story was an unfocused mess that just kind of...ended. Nothing was justifiably resolved. I thought: "Oh! Police corruption! That's interesting!" ...and not two minutes later, all the crooked cops were in jail! That could have been an exciting movie right there! Crooked cops! Who can you trust!? I rolled my eyes at the "15 years later" text.It was too late in the film to be introducing new characters to give them proper development.