The Best of Me
1/4
Starring: Michelle Monaghan, James Marsden, Liana Liberato, Luke Bracey, Gerald McRaney, Sean Bridgers
Rated PG-13 for Sexuality, Violence, Some Drug Content and Brief Strong Language
Nicholas Sparks has distilled the "romantic tearjerker" genre down to a science. He's become a genre all on his own. When someone says "a Nicholas Sparks movie," you know exactly what you're getting: relaxed, Deep South culture, rich girl meets poor guy (both of whom are very photogenic), romance that most are against except a sage old man, violent/deadly plot twists and and ending that wraps everything up in a nice tidy little package. No, it's not realistic, but Nicholas Sparks is not Richard Linklater, and none of his movies have ever been "Before Sunset." Sparks sells a fantasy, and he knows how to package it and sell it so that people will come back again and again.
I haven't seen every movie based on his books (I've seen "The Notebook," "The Last Song," and most of "A Walk to Remember" when I caught it on TV one time a few years ago), but I know enough about him to know his style. That's okay. I loved "The Notebook." It did exactly what it was supposed to and cast a wonderful romantic spell.
That, as they say, was then. "The Best of Me" is now, and it's not a pretty picture. Hollywood has always tried to make filmmaking quantitative so there's less risk, but sadly for them, it's not that simple. And if there's any genre that is more difficult to get right than the romance, I haven't seen it.
The latest Nicholas Sparks movie is called "The Best of Me," and there's no beating around the bush ladies and gentlemen: it is awful. I mean, it's really bad. It would be unfair to call it over-the-top and cheesy, since that comes with the territory (one does not go to a Nicholas Sparks movie expecting anything resembling reality). But it is horribly written, way too long, and occasionally a little offensive.
Dawson (Marsden) and Amanda (Monaghan) are two people living in the South. He works on an oil rig while she is a housewife. Both of them get a call saying that a man named Tuck (McRaney) has died. Both of them return to fulfill his wishes, and it is immediately obvious that there are some deep wounds between them. That's because they were once deeply in love.
Cut to 20 years ago. Dawson (Bracey) is a kid from a bad past who is trying to finish high school, but his nasty uncle/father/some kind of relative, a nasty piece of work named Tommy (Bridgers), wants him to enter into the family business (which is drugs, and by the looks of it, meth). One day, his car breaks down in the middle of the road at a red light. He can't get it to start long enough to get it off the road until a popular, pretty girl named Amanda (Liberato) comes to help. She wants to see him again, but he is hesitant. Amanda is a strong-willed girl, and even after he stands her up, she won't take no for an answer. Long story short, they fall for each other hard. But even after seeking refuge at the house of the obligatory gruff-but-kind man who calls himself Tuck, Tommy finds him and wants to bring him back into the fold. Or else.
This isn't necessarily a bad premise for a movie. A little hokey and maybe a little too dark for something as light as a Nicholas Sparks movie, but it could have been decent at the very least. That would imply that the people making this movie are the least bit competent, which I know some of them are. But based on the evidence, they have less of a clue about what to do with this material than the Boogeyman. "Inept" is too mild a word for this disaster.
I know for a fact that Michelle Monaghan, James Marsden and Liana Liberato can act because I have seen them do it. Michelle Monaghan is one of those actresses who is constantly giving strong performances but can't seem to cross into the A-list. James Marsden, who inherited the role from Paul Walker after he passed away (I would have loved to have seen that), knows exactly what is required of an actor in a Nicholas Sparks movie, having been in "The Notebook." And Liana Liberato was terrific in the little seen "Trust," a film that every Nicholas Sparks fan should see. None of them give very good performances, which isn't entirely their fault. They're working with a script that contains plenty of howlers and rank cheese that most people would have turned and run.
The only member of the main quartet I didn't mention is Luke Bracey, and for good reason: he's awful. The Australian soap stud is just terrible to the point where I cringed whenever he showed up on screen. He's not attractive (in fact, he looks like a deer caught in the headlights) and he certainly can't deliver a simple line of dialogue convincingly.
That's the first half. The second half is better because Monaghan and Marsden are given more to do, and both are too talented to completely blow a role because the script is bad. There is some chemistry between them, and there are times when the film delves into interesting territory. But the script constantly lets them down and director Michael Hoffman occasionally demands that they go over the top.
Sadly, there are some scenes of violence that rubbed me the wrong way. I have nothing against violence in movies, even ones as fundamentally light as this. But you have to treat it in a respectful and honest way. That doesn't happen here. Without giving anything away to the diehards who actually want to see this movie (please don't!), I will say that incidents like these happen far too much and are too devastating to only pay lip service to. It's not what happens that offends me, it's how it's treated in the story.
As if it weren't bad enough, the movie never seems to want to end! The ending is so protracted and filled with more twists than many psychological thrillers. But instead of surprising me, they just made me roll my eyes. Kind of like the movie itself.
Starring: Michelle Monaghan, James Marsden, Liana Liberato, Luke Bracey, Gerald McRaney, Sean Bridgers
Rated PG-13 for Sexuality, Violence, Some Drug Content and Brief Strong Language
Nicholas Sparks has distilled the "romantic tearjerker" genre down to a science. He's become a genre all on his own. When someone says "a Nicholas Sparks movie," you know exactly what you're getting: relaxed, Deep South culture, rich girl meets poor guy (both of whom are very photogenic), romance that most are against except a sage old man, violent/deadly plot twists and and ending that wraps everything up in a nice tidy little package. No, it's not realistic, but Nicholas Sparks is not Richard Linklater, and none of his movies have ever been "Before Sunset." Sparks sells a fantasy, and he knows how to package it and sell it so that people will come back again and again.
I haven't seen every movie based on his books (I've seen "The Notebook," "The Last Song," and most of "A Walk to Remember" when I caught it on TV one time a few years ago), but I know enough about him to know his style. That's okay. I loved "The Notebook." It did exactly what it was supposed to and cast a wonderful romantic spell.
That, as they say, was then. "The Best of Me" is now, and it's not a pretty picture. Hollywood has always tried to make filmmaking quantitative so there's less risk, but sadly for them, it's not that simple. And if there's any genre that is more difficult to get right than the romance, I haven't seen it.
The latest Nicholas Sparks movie is called "The Best of Me," and there's no beating around the bush ladies and gentlemen: it is awful. I mean, it's really bad. It would be unfair to call it over-the-top and cheesy, since that comes with the territory (one does not go to a Nicholas Sparks movie expecting anything resembling reality). But it is horribly written, way too long, and occasionally a little offensive.
Dawson (Marsden) and Amanda (Monaghan) are two people living in the South. He works on an oil rig while she is a housewife. Both of them get a call saying that a man named Tuck (McRaney) has died. Both of them return to fulfill his wishes, and it is immediately obvious that there are some deep wounds between them. That's because they were once deeply in love.
Cut to 20 years ago. Dawson (Bracey) is a kid from a bad past who is trying to finish high school, but his nasty uncle/father/some kind of relative, a nasty piece of work named Tommy (Bridgers), wants him to enter into the family business (which is drugs, and by the looks of it, meth). One day, his car breaks down in the middle of the road at a red light. He can't get it to start long enough to get it off the road until a popular, pretty girl named Amanda (Liberato) comes to help. She wants to see him again, but he is hesitant. Amanda is a strong-willed girl, and even after he stands her up, she won't take no for an answer. Long story short, they fall for each other hard. But even after seeking refuge at the house of the obligatory gruff-but-kind man who calls himself Tuck, Tommy finds him and wants to bring him back into the fold. Or else.
This isn't necessarily a bad premise for a movie. A little hokey and maybe a little too dark for something as light as a Nicholas Sparks movie, but it could have been decent at the very least. That would imply that the people making this movie are the least bit competent, which I know some of them are. But based on the evidence, they have less of a clue about what to do with this material than the Boogeyman. "Inept" is too mild a word for this disaster.
I know for a fact that Michelle Monaghan, James Marsden and Liana Liberato can act because I have seen them do it. Michelle Monaghan is one of those actresses who is constantly giving strong performances but can't seem to cross into the A-list. James Marsden, who inherited the role from Paul Walker after he passed away (I would have loved to have seen that), knows exactly what is required of an actor in a Nicholas Sparks movie, having been in "The Notebook." And Liana Liberato was terrific in the little seen "Trust," a film that every Nicholas Sparks fan should see. None of them give very good performances, which isn't entirely their fault. They're working with a script that contains plenty of howlers and rank cheese that most people would have turned and run.
The only member of the main quartet I didn't mention is Luke Bracey, and for good reason: he's awful. The Australian soap stud is just terrible to the point where I cringed whenever he showed up on screen. He's not attractive (in fact, he looks like a deer caught in the headlights) and he certainly can't deliver a simple line of dialogue convincingly.
That's the first half. The second half is better because Monaghan and Marsden are given more to do, and both are too talented to completely blow a role because the script is bad. There is some chemistry between them, and there are times when the film delves into interesting territory. But the script constantly lets them down and director Michael Hoffman occasionally demands that they go over the top.
Sadly, there are some scenes of violence that rubbed me the wrong way. I have nothing against violence in movies, even ones as fundamentally light as this. But you have to treat it in a respectful and honest way. That doesn't happen here. Without giving anything away to the diehards who actually want to see this movie (please don't!), I will say that incidents like these happen far too much and are too devastating to only pay lip service to. It's not what happens that offends me, it's how it's treated in the story.
As if it weren't bad enough, the movie never seems to want to end! The ending is so protracted and filled with more twists than many psychological thrillers. But instead of surprising me, they just made me roll my eyes. Kind of like the movie itself.
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