★★★☆☆

There was a lot of anticipation when I put The Place Beyond the Pines on my rental list. When a movie involves either cops or gangsters and Ray Liotta is cast you already know it should be good. Ever since I first saw him in Goodfellas he has delivered consistently great gangster and cop performances. Yes, I know he has done other things, but, I wait around for the meat and potatoes. The “artsy” food can be consumed by others.

Seeing Bradley Cooper was also going to be in this film made it a mandatory watch. Two guys who give consistently great performances means even the worst production crew in the world can’t go too far wrong.

The icing on the cake was Eva Mendes. She has done so much stuff I like. I first saw her in the second Fast & Furious, the one nobody talks about because it didn’t have Vin Diesel. Where I really took note of her was Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

The Budget and Background

The Place Beyond the Pines has the feel of some of the earlier bad cop movies with small budgets. That doesn’t make it bad, it makes it character driven, mostly shot on location in low rent areas. Whoever was doing the driving for Ryan Gosling’s character was phenom and they had the camera work to back it up.

I don’t want to leave you with the impression that this movie is all about stunt driving and chase scenes. It’s really about one generation of dysfunctional family passing that dysfunction onto the next no matter what. The moments of beauty and tenderness are offset by the sense of hopelessness. Not in the movie, but the hopelessness of the character’s lives. In some ways it is a bit of a Russian movie.

For more movies to add to your rental list please try list one and list two.