Three consecutive stories: a criminal and his 1 year-old son, a rookie cop and his 1 year-old son, and the two sons accidental interaction/friendship 15 years later. This gripping melodrama about family relationships is as dark as director Cianfrance's previous film, Blue Valentine, and the notion of how the past will always come back to haunt you, is relentless. Initially, I never thought of Gosling as serious acting material, but since his above-mentioned other collaboration with the same director, he's been growing on me. And Ray Liotta is always such an enjoyably menacing bad guy. Well worth the extra-long movie time.
PS: I can guarantee the director/writer is a huge Star Wars fan. The dialogue between the mechanic and the criminal's son about how his father was the fastest motorcyclist he'd ever known, is right off of Ben Kenobi's words. Even the sunglasses he hands down the kid from his father kid is green-rimmed - the color of the light-saber Ben hands down to Luke.
Mo says:
Another touching story about father-son relationship which was drawn beautifully by a new and innovative director. I was really impressed and stick with it through 140 minute without any bored feeling or ability to predict what gonna happen at last.Truly artistic work and a picture of morality,ambitious , fate and inheritance .
ReplyDeleteSpolier alert!
ReplyDeleteWhat stayed with me the most, was how Bradley Cooper suddenly popped up in the middle of the movie - and not when he was chasing Ryan Gosling's character for an entire sequence, but when Gosling died, and Cooper looked out the window, and we realize: It's Bradley Cooper! Cinematically, very well done.
Well....,I have to confess that I recognized him exactly after his arrival!this almost occurs for those kind of female audiences waiting 1 hour for an extra-handsome actor finally to appear!I guess this is exactly happening when a male viewer is expecting Mila Kunis or Salma Hayek !Am I Right?;-)
ReplyDeleteI guess so!
ReplyDelete:-D