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The Place Beyond The Pines

The new film from Director Derek Cianfrance (BLUE VALENTINE)
Starring Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes, and Bradley Cooper

The highways savagely twist and turn around Schenectady, N.Y., the blue-collar setting for The Place Beyond the Pines — but they’re nothing compared to the human road map that is Luke (Ryan Gosling), the film’s first character. A motorcycle stunt rider for a circus, he’s covered in tattoos, including one on his cheek that shows a dagger dripping blood. Introduced by a long tracking shot that concludes with a dangerous whirl inside a spherical cage, he’s a man going nowhere in a hurry. The roads and tattoos make apt metaphors for this entangled drama by Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine), who shares a sensibility with the likes of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Denis Villeneuve with his ambitious storytelling. At once expansive and intimate, The Place Beyond the Pines flirts with exhaustion and threatens credulity with its extreme generational conflicts and use of coincidence. Cianfrance and his sterling cast keep it all together, vanquishing doubt and soap suds. There’s a palpable sense of teamwork that brings out the best in all of these players. The Place Beyond the Pines is actually three interlocking stories in one, the first concerning Luke’s headlong ride into destiny. Just as he removes the helmet from his bottle-blonde locks, he’s met by Romina (Eva Mendes), the girlfriend he wooed and abandoned the last time the circus was in town. Eva lives with a new man (Mahershala Ali), but she still has feelings for Luke, and there’s much more to the connection that this. Luke, ever reckless, decides he’s going to quit the fair and get back with Romina, new boyfriend be damned. He gets a job at a mechanic’s shop run by fellow ne’er-do-well Robin (Killing Them Softly’s Ben Mendelsohn), but before long the two are chasing bigger money, brazenly robbing local banks. An abrupt twist to the tale turns the focus upon Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), a rookie Schenectady cop whose pursuit of Luke leaves him injured and with a hero’s citation. His fellow officers, led by a cynical veteran (Ray Liotta), want Cross to cash in on his kudos by participating in a raid that will send ill-gotten loot their way. Cross first balks and then counters, but he’s not quite as squeaky-clean as he seems. He’s prepared to do the right thing, but for the wrong reasons. He demands an unwarranted promotion from a police superior (Bruce Greenwood) who warns him, “You’re too smart for your own good.” These words will echo as the film jumps 15 years, and two other major figures join the ever-expanding cast: troubled youths played with bravura skill by Dane DeHaan (Chronicle) and Emory Cohen (New York, I Love You). Some might say that Cianfrance and his co-writers Ben Coccio and Darius Marder are also too clever for their own good, in the way they resolve the film’s three distinct chapters. But when you really think about it, The Place Beyond the Pines isn’t all that far-fetched. What we call coincidences are often the unforeseen consequences of actions taken and connections made along the tangled road of life. Things like what a character is referring to when he says to another, “If you ride like lightning, you’re going to crash like thunder.” Courtesy: Peter Howell, The Toronto StarOfficial Trailer
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Directed by: 
Derek Cianfrance
Running Time: 
140
Country(ies): 
U.S.A.
Language: 
English
Starring: 
Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes, Bradley Cooper, Rose Byrne, Ray Liotta, Ben Mendelsohn
Screenplay by: 
Derek Cianfrance, Ben Coccio

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