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Released by: Universal Studios
Released on: August 6, 2013.
Director: Derek Cianfrance
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Craig Van Hook, Eva Mendes, Bradley Cooper, Ray Liotta
Year: 2012
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The Movie:
Written and directed by Derek Cianfrance, the same man behind Blue Valentine, 2012's The Place Beyond The Pines begins by introducing us to a motorcycle rider named 'Handsome' Luke. He makes his living riding in a cage with a travelling carnival and after stopping through Schenectady, New York he gets a visit from a woman named Ro (Eva Mendes) who he once had a one night stand with. When he finds out he got her pregnant and he's got a one year old son, he quits his job and decides to stick around. Ro's living with her mother and her boyfriend, Kofi (Mahershala Ali), in his house, however. Nevertheless, Luke tries to make a go of it with her. They hang out a bit and get reacquainted but he needs to figure out how to take care of her and the baby financially.
Eventually Luke hooks up with Robin (Ben Mendelsohn), and he suggests they rob banks. Luke will go in, his face covered, take the money and then ride away on his bike as fast as possible, then ride it up the ramp into his cube van. He's hesitant at first but their first plan goes off without a hitch. Luke gets a taste for it and decides to buy his son a crib, more or less forcing his way into Kofi's house to assemble it. An altercation occurs, Luke strikes him, and Ro basically cuts him out of her life at this point. With nothing else to loose, Luke gets brasher in his robberies, to the point where Robin wants out. Now flying solo, Luke gets chased by the cops and an ambitious rookie cop named Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), a married man with a one year old son of his own, gives chase.
From here, the lives of both men change permanently as the repercussions of the events that unfold have a trickledown effect that spans from one generation to the next, across families and social boundaries.
This is an interesting and well thought out movie and though it loses some of its momentum in the last half (it is essentially a film told in three parts, but in order to avoid spoilers, we're going to keep details slim), the ending is at least appropriate and even fairly moving. The performances here are very strong. Gosling owns the film early on, playing Luke as an interesting and conflicted man torn between coming to terms with the birth of the son he didn't know existed, domesticating himself and figuring out how to pay for all of this. His character is both dangerous and tender, which goes a long way towards making him human. While we see him waving a gun around screaming obscenities at people in the banks he robs, we also see him insist he be able to give his son his first taste of ice cream and holding his mother showing her legitimate and sincere affection.
So as the story develops and his life and the lives of those in his family intertwine with AJ Cross, the different layers of the film start to unfold and what started off as a crime thriller turns into more of a character based drama. The pace slows down, the characters age and the events that occurred start to show their impact. Avery's story takes on a larger portion of the film as we learn how he deals with what happened and then see his unwavering ambitious streak takeover. The police department shows its true colors and his personal life starts to unravel, but his father, a judge, pushes him and shows him a way to take advantage of the situation. The theme of family ties and particularly the way in which the actions (sins) of the father affect the lives of their sons, runs throughout the film.
The film is long, too long really, but it's remarkably well acted. Gosling carries the first half, Cooper the second, and then the third half is, appropriately enough, given over to Emory Cohen (in the role of Avery's son) and Dane DeHaan (Luke's son) who prove quite capable in their respective roles and as such, are quite believable. Bradley Cooper does a good job of showing how ambition has consequences while Eva Mendes excels as one of the few sympathetic characters in the picture. A supporting role from Ray Liotta is solid, and it won't surprise anyone to learn that he plays a sordid type, which seems to be how he's been typecast lately - but he's good at it. Wrap all of this up with plenty of beautiful cinematography that does a great job of capturing the quaint upstate New York locations and an interesting score from Mike Patton (yes, that Mike Patton) and this one winds up an impressive and engrossing picture. Some more judicious decisions in the editing room would have maybe made it a leaner and more effective film, but that's a minor complaint. This is, otherwise, very well made.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Place Beyond The Pines debuts on Blu-ray from Universal Studios in a very impressive looking AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer framed at 2.40.1 widescreen. The image is consistently crisp and clean. The transfer offers up all sorts of little bits and pieces of detail to appreciate here throughout the movie: the grease on the hands of the characters in the shop, the faded ink of a bad tattoo, and the pilling on the carpet inside a house. Medium and long distance shots show off impressive texture throughout, particularly in those shots where the movie opens up outside, and color reproduction remains impressive throughout even if it looks to have been tweaked here and there to boost the contrast a bit. Skin tones look good, no digital scrubbing or noise reduction is evident at all, while shadow detail is strong in the dark scenes as are black levels. This transfer is very strong across the board, as you'd expect it to be given that it's a brand new major studio production and all.
The only audio option is a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track in English with optional subtitles provided in English SDH, French and Spanish. The 5.1 track is a good one, you'll notice this right in the opening scene involving the motorcycles and you'll notice it in the chase scenes that follow as well. Later on in the picture where there's less action you'll still pick up on some impressive surround activity in the party scene and the campaign scene but even in the quieter moments the score is spread out nicely and dialogue stays crisp and properly balanced. No issues with hiss or distortion and plenty of depth here to appreciate.
The main extra feature on this release is a commentary track with writer/director Derek Cianfrance. He talks about how his DP quit (because he had a dream that he died during the making of the movie) eight weeks before production started and how he overcame that, before heading on to discuss the cast and crew, the locations used in the movie and the evolution of the story. He also notes the intricacies of shooting the motorcycle cage scene, how Gosling came to regret his character's face tattoos, some ideas that he had and tried that wound up backfiring and some that wound up working for the better, and quite a bit more. This is a solid talk, he's understandably got a lot to say about this project and he keeps the commentary interesting throughout.
There's also a featurette here entitled Going To The Place Beyond The Pines. It's a short featurettes running 4:31 and it's basically an EPK style promotional piece. It does feature some interview and sound bite clips with Gosling, Cooper, Cianfrance and a few others but it's mostly just clips from the movie while the interviewees talk about the storyline and their characters while Cianfrance gushes about his admittedly very talented cast.
Aside from that, we get a selection of Deleted and Extended Scenes - four scenes in total: 80/20, Luke Goes To Jail, Military School and Jason Meets Dean At Robin's. Combined these run 9:52. One of these scenes involves Gosling sitting on a porch crying as he holds his infant son, and it's pretty much guaranteed to make the ladies swoon. Also look out for animated menus and chapter selection as well as previews/trailers for other Universal titles, but no trailer for the feature itself. As this is a combo pack release a digital copy and DVD version of the movie is also included and the Blu-ray case comes packaged in a slipcase.
The Final Word:
An intelligently written, very well acted and beautifully shot film, The Place Beyond The Pines drags a bit in its last half but is still very much worth watching. It's a very pensive and layered film that moves at a deliberate pace and which benefits from a strong cast and some excellent production values. Universal's Blu-ray isn't as stacked with extras as some might have hoped for but it presents the movie in beautiful shape and with a few decent supplements as well. Recommended.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
