The Place Beyond the Pines is a flawed yet ballsy epic

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      Starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, and Eva Mendes. Rating not available.

      Because some people must know these things: yes, Ryan Gosling holds a baby in The Place Beyond the Pines. And Gosling’s bare, muscle-y torso, acting as a fine canvas for many tattoos, is, thoughtfully, the movie’s official greeter.

      But then we follow tattooed muscles through an outdoor carnival, into a tent of cheering people, and inside a spherical metal cage in a daredevil tracking shot that deserves Martin Scorsese commendation. It’s a magnetic portent of the dark, tense, flawed yet ballsy epic to come—and of the generations of havoc that excess testosterone always wreaks, guys.

      Director-cowriter Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine, also with Gosling) has created a three-part Greek tragedy, with a Hall & Oates joke bonus. In part one, motorcycle stunt rider Luke (Gosling) pulls into Schenectady, New York, spots former lay Romina (affecting Eva Mendes), and discovers an infant son. At his mechanic pal’s (Ben Mendelsohn, excellent) instigation, Luke decides armed robbery is the preferred child-support method, and Gosling gets an acting triple-word score for charisma, vulnerability, and Drive-like “um, yikes” violence. Also, the motorcycle chases are intense.

      Abruptly, things shift to Avery (Bradley Cooper, raw and perfectly unlikable), a rookie cop with corrupt coworkers (including Ray Liotta, who else?), a manipulative father, and his own selfish ambitions. He, too, has an infant son. Although this section is less mesmerizing than the Greek god, er, Gosling sequence, it is involving in a police-thriller way.

      Then as the story jumps ahead 15 years, things become a wee bit emotionally unhinged. The fathers’ sins, indeed, kind of suck for their now teenage sons, Jason (Dane DeHaan) and A J (Emory Cohen), and history amusingly, sorrowfully repeats itself in pharmacy theft via bicycle. So many daddy issues, so much filmmaking verve and style.

      But remember: things will go awry when there’s a bloody-dagger tattoo beside someone’s eye.

      Watch the trailer for The Place Beyond the Pines. 

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