Artwork by Nicky Costi (flourishtodecay.tumblr.com) Thanks Nicky!
The only things I knew about this film going in were that it had Ryan Gosling in it and I often mistook it for Blue Valentine, another of Gosling's films.Admittedly, I half expected this to end up like a better version of Ghost Rider when it started out. But it ended up being a lot different.
Did I like it, though?
Story/Dialogue: 1997: Luke 'Handsome Luke' Glanton finds out that he has a son to a former flame and decides to stop his travelling act as a stunt biker to stick around for his kid. After getting shot and killed by Avery Cross, the story shifts from Luke to Avery, to their kids 15 years later. It's only then we see the ultimate consequences of their actions.
Without knowing what the movie was about beforehand, it was rather jarring to see what I thought was the hero get blown away halfway through the movie.
As I got to the end though, I found myself realising that there are no heroes, there are no villains and there is no justice. This is not a complaint, however, as there's a personal freedom that comes with not submitting to the dark impulses within.
The dialogue in this movie feels as natural as the forest it's shot in. Though I feel as though there was an overuse of 'fuck.' Any time a movie has that and it just takes me out of it. With this said, there are some fantastic lines in the movie that made me pause it and just stare at a wall for a moment.
Cinematography: The film was framed in an atmospheric fashion. One minute it was handheld for chase scenes and the next it was shot on dolly as smooth as a sheet of silk.
One of the things I loved visually is the beginning and ending scenes, where Luke is riding around one of those roller cages with his crew while the ending sees Jason leaving on a motorcycle under the open sky.
That aside, the locations were beautiful to look at, even with the rapid cuts during bike chases. A lot of the colour was graded so that the buildings were desaturated while the people (Especially around the eyes) and the trees were more vivid. This could represent the harmony/order of nature and the symmetry/chaos of man.
Audio: The audio took a back seat in this film. While there was limited library tunes, the score showed up abruptly, raising tension in what appeared to be relaxing scenes. For all its excellent cinematography, I felt the audio was lacking.
Overall: This movie was on my to watch list, but ended up so far down the pile that I forgot about it. While I enjoyed it, the movie felt like a film student's big break after a stint at university. You can see elements of Wes Anderson and Woody Allen in the framing of the films.
It feels safe as a film, but I still enjoyed it.
4 stars.
Thus ends this review.
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Thanks again to Hannah for her request: readingfreak.tumblr.com
Thanks to Nicky for the awesome drawing: flourishtodecay.tumblr.com
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