The Place Beyond the Pines (2012).

Boring! Actually after being a little bored with this film, it moved on into unexpected storylines, which proved to be very delicate, intricate and emotional. The film focuses on Luke (Ryan Gosling), who is a stunt biker, moving around the country with a circus. When he stops in a town he stayed in before, he bumps into an old flame, whom he had a fling with the year before. He quickly discovers that he has fathered a child, a young boy with her. He immediately quits his job and plans to stay. But he wants to muscle in on her new relationship. When this badly back fires, he goes looking for money and gets an offer from his new employer who persuades him to carry out a series of bank robberies. When one of the robberies goes wrong he gets killed by a Police officer, leaving behind his young son.

The story unfolds from here, and looks intelligently at the longer term consequences. The Policeman’s son and his son meet up when one of them moves schools and they soon come to blows over a history that Luke’s son knows little about. When he discovers the truth he doesn’t deal with it well.

After the boredom of the first hour or so of this film, if you haven’t given up and gone to bed early, there is a great film, with great performances from all the cast to enjoy. There is nothing wrong with this film apart from the fact that it lingers so long on each part of it. Maybe it is the impatience of the modern viewer (including me) which makes it hard to watch? But eventually I cut this film up into three parts and watched it over two days. It was well worth it.

3 out of 4.

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