From Father To Son

Desperation is the catalyst to many a foolish deed. Keeping your moral compass alive and well when your back’s against the wall can be difficult to do when you find yourself in such a hopeless situation.

It’s the emotional equivalent to being a wounded animal out in the wild, except now the predators of temptation seem to inherently know there’s an easy meal close-by.

When walking around ‘wounded’ from a despondent, heavy heart, you have to be careful. Lie low, hide, and stay especially away from reckless people and environments. In fact, go lock yourself away in a room if you have to, it doesn’t matter, but don’t be caught out in the open in your time of trying. The casualty rate far exceeds those of survivors during such a time. 

Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) has a unique skill – there isn’t a stunt too daring for him to perform on his motorcycle. To many he is a hero, including to Romania (Eva Mendes), a girl he’s been dating. The two have an on-off relationship due to the nature of his work; Luke has to travel a lot all over the country to perform. Perhaps the reason Romania has a secret: She had Luke’s baby boy.

When Luke finds out about his boy, he decides to turn a leaf and quit his job as a stunt-performer. Having missed out on a relationship with his own father, Luke is determined to now have one with his son. Unfortunately, simply walking back into the lives of Romania and their baby is not that simple. She is now living with someone else, a man that can offer both of them more stability.

 Trying to make a new living is hard for Luke and along with the man he now works for they decide to start robbing some banks. 

When you have a gift, knowing when and where to use it is almost more important than using it at all. Luke’s gift to ride motorcycles undoubtedly places him in a special category but unfortunately, people who live on the edge also don’t mind falling off the edge.

The last bank he robs turns out to be his last when he has a fatal encounter with the police, an event which in turn sets off a whole list of repercussions, for the police officer who shot him and also years later for his son. 

‘The Place Beyond The Pines’ takes a raw look at of the vicious cycle that keeps on repeating itself when a parent leaves a legacy of absence in a child’s life. It also explores the ‘code of silence’ that exist among men, a very real and powerful dynamic that stems from a misplaced ideology concerning loyalty to one’s friends or the group in order to be ‘one of the boys’.

The performance from all the cast members involved in this project is superb and as viewer, you come to understand the importance of building a solid relationship with your children from a young age. 

Behind Every Dark Cloud

 

There’s a problem with happiness – you can’t have it all the time. The message out there in the world however seems to be the exact opposite.

As a society, we chase any and every opportunity that will grant us a marvelous feeling of peace and contentment and when we don’t find it, we are unhappy. We seem to forget that loneliness, failure, despair and anguish is the other, often more true, flipside to the coin.

What we try to do, is to numb our pain. In fact, if we don’t have to deal with it, even better. Almost as if nothing in life should hurt. No. Pain is painful, loneliness suck, being rejected hurts and having your wife or husband cheat on you with a colleague can be emotionally crushing to most.

When you have to face life’s crises on top of being bi-polar too, things might seem even more severe, which in turn can make it even more, dare one say - interesting.

Patrick (Bradley Cooper) has just been released from a mental institution after being sentenced there by a court for assaulting the man who had a sexual affair with his wife. While spending time at the mental facility, for the first time he comes to terms with the fact that he suffers from bi-polar disorder.

Pat however, refuses to drink his medication because it makes him feel drowsy, but perhaps he just hasn’t had the right motivation to do so, yet. When he meets up again with Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a girl who herself seems to gravitate towards the extreme ends of socially acceptable behaviour, Pat finds someone with whom he can associate. 

The fact that Tiffany is in contact with Nikki, Pat’s ex-wife, is of course what really interests him (or so he says). Ever since his violent explosion and being sent for psychiatric counselling, Pat hasn’t seen her and all he can obsess about is getting back in touch with her.

Tiffany agrees to help get a letter to her from him, in return for dancing with her at an upcoming event. Although feeling forced into helping her, he soon realises that for all her unconventional quirks and mannerisms, everything she says or does is completely void of pretense something, that in his world, allows him to make more sense of things than he has been able to do for a very long time. 

  

‘Silver Linings Playbook’ is a wonderful story of two people making the most of dealing with some really challenging problems they have to face in life. It makes those of us who sometimes feel dejected and alienated realise that when you try hard enough and stay positive, you can have a silver lining to your story too.

Ultimately, we are all a bit messed up. Something this movie communicates really well. What you want and yearn for is often far simpler than you initially might have thought - to find someone that will love you and say, ‘It’s okay – I’ll be messed up with you.’

  

 

Falling Face First

Ever been a victim for doing the right thing? It’s the worst. Ordinarily ‘acting by the book’ will allow you to navigate life’s treacherous moments safely, until somebody dies as a result thereof.  

Yes sir, no amount of procedurally correct actions can bring back somebody once they are dead. Death is simply not contained by the boundaries of protocol. A hard fact to swallow, no matter who you are.

When Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerhard Butler) rescues his Commander-In-Chief, President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart), just in time from a car wreck after their vehicle was involved in an accident, he does the right thing, but he doesn’t save the First Lady (Ashley Judd), too. (Who in their right mind doesn’t save Ashley Judd?)

Being more than just the President’s number one agent, but a friend and confidant as well, having Mike around stirs up too many memories for the President of that fateful night when his wife died and so he gets resigned to a desk job, away from the Whitehouse. Fortunately for Mike, fate is about to serve up yet another unlikely twist to his tale. 

During a visit from South Korea’s Prime Minister, the president and a whole bunch of US officials are taken hostage by a North-Korean terrorist, Tang Yeonsak (Rick Yune), who managed to infiltrate the Minister’s detail. Fuelled by rage over the death of his parents who were killed by an American landmine, Tang starts killing hostages down in the Whitehouse’s bunker and threatens to kill the president next unless America withdraws all their military forces from Korea.

Besides insisting on the withdrawal, he also demands the access codes to all the nuclear weapons distributed all over the country. His aim is to activate them and turn America into a nuclear wasteland. Unfortunately for Tang, his acts of terror is about to be met by Banning, a man with skills more terrifying than any terrorist. Having been forced to sit out from real active duty, Mike is more than motivated to make amends for the past and pretty soon, he will once again be his president’s no1 go-to guy.

Unfortunately, it’s not just Olympus (the Secret Service’s code name for the Whitehouse) that has fallen in this movie, but also the film itself. Although it went on to earn $160 million and was made for just $70 million, it’s a typical story of ‘one man against all the odds’ who then goes on to save the day.

Gerhard Butler’s character lacks some serious depth throughout his entire performance, while the whole movie is entrenched with every visual trick and stunt fathomable. The plot falls flat even further when the new acting president ( Morgan Freeman) along with his advisors do what always gets done in these films – they never follow the advice coming from the man on the ground and proceed to act on their ideas. No surprise at all that someone always dies as a result.

It’s nice to see a fairly young man 

such as Aaron Eckhart in the role of president. A man who keeps fit by boxing and doesn’t mind taking a punch himself. 

However, it’s not enough.If you feel like some mindless entertainment about the first successful terrorist attack on the Whitehouse ever, then watch ‘Olympus Has Fallen’. Just be aware that it’s the only significant claim to this film.