After weeks of duds, a movie I would actually recommend. The trailers are a little misleading (slight, vague spoilers from here) in that it makes it look like an indie-Heat with Bradley Cooper’s hot-shot beat cop chasing Ryan Gosling’s daredevil bank robber, but it’s really three different movies: Gosling’s traveling-circus-performer-turned-motorcycle-riding-bank-robber finds out he has a son with Eva Mendes (stripped down and refreshingly vulnerable) but she doesn’t think he can provide for them both, so she’s with another man. He hooks up with Ben Mendelson’s shady mechanic to rob banks…Then there’s Bradley Cooper’s ambitious cop, who wants to move up the food-chain as quickly as possible, and clashes with a corrupt local detective (played by a towering Ray Liotta in his best performance in years, I forgot how scary Ray can be)…And then the narrative flashes forward 15 years, when the sons of the Cooper and Gosling characters meet. As is, Cooper and Gosling just barely share a scene together.
What Works: I probably would have loved to have seen Cooper/Gosling going at each other——I love a good may-the-best-man-win, anti-hero vs. anti-hero movie——-but this movie offers something more unexpected. And, quite possibly, more special. It’s really a film about legacies, and what we give our sons. What do we want them to inherit from us and what will they? [Cooper’s teenage son is bad-news, despite being the son of a cop.] This is a powerful, surprising theme for a crime film. And it doesn’t hurt that Gosling, Cooper, Mendes, Liotta, and Dane Dehaan (as Gosling’s teenage son) all rise to the challenge with excellent, meaty performances. Also, the bank robbery scenes are terrifically realistic.
What Doesn’t Work: Bradley Cooper’s teenage son may have been miscast. I kept waiting to be pulled into this guido thug’s orbit, but he’s such a snarling piece-of-shit, I could never relate to him. Also, the ending doesn’t really work. It feels a bit soft and anti-climactic given what we just saw. Overall, I would say the movie has an excellent first act, a pretty good second one, and a disappointing finale…You want it to be the other way around and leave the audience on a high note.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Changed the ending…re-cast Cooper’s son…quite possibly edited out about ten to 20 minutes, but, overall, a satisfying time at the movies.