The Place Beyond the Pines

The Place Beyond the Pines - Dir. Derek Cianfrance (2013)

"If you ride like lightning, you're gonna crash like thunder."

Derek Cianfrance debuted as a filmmaker with 1998's Brother Tied, but didn't gain widespread notice until his second feature, "Blue Valentine," an intimate and heartbreaking story of a dissolving marriage. Cianfrance's latest movie, The Place Beyond the Pines, is a much more ambitious effort that re-teams the writer/director with Blue Valentine star Ryan Gosling.

Place Beyond the Pines is a generational drama told in three parts about the sins of the father passing on to their sons. The tale begins with an uninterrupted tracking shot of Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling), the main attraction at a traveling carnival. Luke and his partners, the Heartthrobs, ride their motorcycles around and around within the confines of a caged sphere, an apt allusion for Luke's vagabond life. That is, until he runs into old flame, Romina (Eva Mendes), and discovers they had a son together. Luke decides to stick around. In his own words, "I wasn't around my dad...look at the way I turned out." However, his job prospects are slim and the only work he can get is fixing cars at a low-rent body shop run by Robin (Ben Mendelsohn, once again cast as a sweaty lowlife). Looking to score some fast cash, Luke and Robin cobble a plan to rob banks with the former hitting hard and fast before escaping on his bike. There, Robin will be waiting with a box truck to scoop up Luke and make their escape.

The second act changes gears as we follow Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), a squeaky clean beat cop who crosses paths with Luke, now dubbed the 'Moto-Bandit.' Avery's newfound notoriety catches the eye of veteran detective Peter Deluca (Ray Liotta). Soon, Avery finds himself in a dirty world where he's forced to take payoffs and steal evidence from police lockup. The story leaps forward fifteen years in the third act to focus on Jason (Dane DeHaan) and AJ (Emory Cohen), the respective sons of Luke and Avery. Jason has a lot of questions about the father he never knew while AJ feels ignored by his dad, who is in the running for New York's Attorney General. The two become friends not knowing the improbable connection they share.

Cianfrance announces his bold vision for Place Beyond the Pines right from the beginning with that memorable tracking shot courtesy of DP Sean Bobbitt, who also shot similar sequences for Steve McQueen on Hunger and Shame. Gosling commands attention with every scene he's in, despite the fact that he plays a slight variation of the taciturn loner seen in Drive. Gosling's smoldering charisma is so undeniable that the film suffers when he disappears. This is no slight on Bradley Cooper, but his character isn't nearly as interesting and his travails are fairly formulaic. The movie does improve in the third act with the arrival of Dane DeHaan, who bares more than a resemblance to a young Leonardo DiCaprio. DeHaan has quickly established himself as one of Hollywood's top newcomers due to his work on Lawless and Chronicle. His performance here is strong and carries the final section of Pines while Cohen overplays his hand with a thick Long Island accent. Eva Mendes is also terrific as the glammed down Romina. Well, at least as glammed down as Eva Mendes can get.

The Place Beyond the Pines is an uneven effort by Derek Cianfrance, but the writer/director has nothing to be ashamed about. There's a melancholy lyricism to the movie, which is handsomely shot and littered with emotional performances and naturalistic dialogue.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)