The Longest Ride

Every Nicholas Sparks movies summed up in a single pic 

Grade: C +

Director: George Tillman Jr.

Starring: Britt Robertson, Scott Eastwood, Alan Alda, Jack Huston and Oona Chaplin

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hr. 8 min.

Like the comfort food discussed during The Longest Ride, Nicholas Sparks’ books—and the movies they spawn—are steeped in sentimental appeal. There are two nostalgic founts in this latest film adaptation: Sparks’ usual bucolic Southern setting, bounded this time by a Gatsby-esque vision of life in North Carolina during the roaring 1920s that segues into the surface tranquility of Eisenhower-era America.

The thread running through these dual timelines is the typical Sparks formula: an adorable couple falls in and temporarily out of love, then overcomes obstacles to reunite happily ever after while the audience is left to cope with the body count.

She is Sophia (Britt Robertson), an art-history student at Wake Forest University who slips on boots and goes slumming for cowboys one weekend. He is Luke (Scott Eastwood), a stetson-wearing, pickup truck-driving professional bull rider attempting to win the national championship after a near-fatal injury a year ago. “I want a cowboy!” squeals Sophia’s sorority sister when hunky Luke later arrives to take Sophia on a date and, in Sparks’ world view, rescue her from cloistered academic elitism.

On the way, Luke and Sophia happen up a burning car wreck and save the elderly driver, Ira Levinson (Alan Alda). In the passenger seat is a basket of decades-old letters written by Ira (played as a younger man by Jack Huston) to his departed wife Ruth (Oona Chaplin). As Sophia’s hospital visits become sessions of “Letters with Ira,” the flashbacks of Ira and Ruth’s sephia-soaked, persevering love supposed informs Luke and Sophia’s seeming mismatch.

The Longest Ride is the tenth film adaptation of a Sparks novel. But while most of the author’s books are set in North Carolina, this is the fourth actually filmed in the Tar Heel state—shooting locales include Wilmington and the Triad area. There is also a subplot involving Ira and Ruth’s visit to Black Mountain College, an actual, now defunct experimental liberal arts commune in western NC with a history that’s worth a Wikipedia search.

There’s an earnestness hovering throughout the film that’s difficult to deride. Ira and Ruth’s lifelong romance is the alternate inspiration for the film’s title beyond the 8 seconds needed for a successful bull ride. But while director George Tillman Jr. lends a taut energy to his depictions of the bull-riding circuit, that touch doesn’t extend to Luke and Sophia’s lynchpin dalliance. Full of cliched challenges and incredulous resolutions, their coupling is typical Sparks pap. Ira and Ruth’s story doesn’t really dictate the outcome of Luke and Sophia in the context of the narrative, save for a ridiculous “pay off” in the film’s climax.

Tillman instead seeks to reflect the nostalgia of second-generation casting—Clint Eastwood’s son is the chiseled Luke, while John Huston’s grandson and Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter play the younger Ira and Ruth. But that’s hardly enough to stomach this corn-filled comfort food.

Tower Heist

From 48 Hrs. to 15 Mins.

Grade: C –

Director: Brett Ratner
Starring: Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Matthew Broderick, Alan Alda, Casey Affleck, Michael Pena and Gabourey Sidibe

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hr. 45 min.

The acting nebbish populating the comedy caper Tower Heist are ill-equipped for director Brett Ratner’s persistent but ever-inadequate action movie propensities. At the same time, Ratner and (count ‘em) four credited writers extract comic ore from their cast with the precision of a dragline. The result is a movie with an identity crisis whose edgiest trait is its stupefying dullness.

Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) is building manager for a Manhattan high-rise whose employees lose their pension to a Ponzi scheme run by Madoff doppelganger Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), the tower’s penthouse occupant. Once the fed’s case against Shaw starts crumbling, Josh and four coworkers (Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck, Michael Pena and Gabourey Sidibe), aided by a motor-mouthed ex-con (Eddie Murphy), conspire to rob Shaw’s condo of ill-gotten loot.

As the hole-ridden plot staggers from one half-baked scene to another, its stars are left to yammer and mug for the camera in a desperate group salvage operation. The biggest heist here happens whenever someone buys a ticket to watch millionaire performers make a meager movie about stealing other people’s money.

Neil Morris

Flash of Genius

I'm living in a van down by the river

Grade: B –

Director: Marc Abraham

Starring: Greg Kinnear, Lauren Graham, Dermot Mulroney, and Alan Alda

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hours

The typical David-Goliath story seldom troubles itself with such pesky questions as “At what price victory?” since cost of defeat is usually so much higher. Nevertheless, this query lies at the heart of the parable of Robert Kearns in Flash of Genius. The true life account of one man’s lone stand against the corporate giant who wronged him reads like low hanging, Capra-esque fruit ripe for Hollywood’s picking.

The narrative is irresistible: in the early 1960s, Kearns (Greg Kinnear), an engineer, university professor, and part-time inventor, perfected an electrical process for intermittent windshield wipers in automobiles. After applying for patents, he demonstrated his invention for eager engineers at the Ford Motor Co., who initially agreed to purchase motors from Kearns to install in their cars. Ford soon rebuffed Kearns’ offer only to come out with their separate version of intermittent wipers soon thereafter. Upon inspection, Kearns discovered that Ford’s electrical wiper design was identical to his process.

So began decades of legal wrangling that would consume Kearns’ for the remainder of his life. It is easy to sympathize with such a figure and cheer his single-minded quest for justice, and Philip Railsback’s script invites you to do just that, all the way through the clichéd courtroom climax. But, when Kearns begins to rebuff increasingly lucrative offers to settle his lawsuit, despite the pleadings of his first attorney (Alan Alda) and his wife (Lauren Graham), a different perspective begins to come into focus.

When the attorney explains that “money is how justice is dispensed in this country,” the declaration comes across as sage truth instead of the blind motive of a greedy attorney. After all, Kearns’ primary impetus for developing and marketing his wiper invention was the opportunity to profit off it, thereby securing he and his family’s financial wellbeing. By rejecting million dollar settlement offers, does not Kearns’ sense of “justice” morph from altruistic to selfish? Kearns is not quixotic in the classic sense – he does slay a corporate giant or two whilst jousting legal windmills. But, his fixation on cockeyed idealism over practicality assumes an added dimension when the ideal and practical are both honorable and mutually exclusive. While Kearns eventually earns much of the professional vindication he desires, he also loses his family and, at times, his sanity.

Helmer Marc Abraham seems to recognize this subtext, but the long-time producer – but first-time director – seems simply incapable of amplifying it with a murky, often bland presentation along with cinematographer Dante Spinotti’s murky, lifeless visuals. In contrast, Steve Zaillian’s A Civil Action, in many ways Flash of Genius’ fraternal twin, is a flawed film that at least had the wisdom to embrace its protagonist’s righteous folly. And, one needn’t image what a filmmaker like Martin Scorsese could forge out of this sort of tragic character arc; just pop in a DVD of Raging Bull or even The Aviator.

Even the ever improving Kinnear suffers in an otherwise fine performance. For all his recent success, Kinnear has yet to be pushed outside his acting comfortable zone. Flash of Genius presents his best chance to date to do so, but it, like the film itself, turns out to be a squandered opportunity.

Neil Morris