Blue Ridge Fall

Aaron, Danny, Taz and Shane are small-town boyhood friends. Shane is slightly older and has been in trouble with the law, Taz and Danny are high school seniors and both are football players. Danny even has prospects of a college scholarship. Aaron makes up the fourth of their quartet and although slow-witted and the victim of domestic abuse has real talent as a sketch artist.

When Aaron reacts with violence to his father's domestic abuse, his friends are faced with the question `How far will you go to protect a friend'. The boys make their decisions but through ill-chance and bad-decisions events quickly spiral out of control and no-ones life is going to be as it was.

Overall this film was watchable and the plot moved along well. All of the main characters were believable and you could easily empathize with the boys, however it suffered in that none of the characters were fully developed and the ending was, at best, ambiguous.

I missed the very beginning so maybe I missed something. I would appreciate any answers. I watched this mainly because the story was supposed to be fairly close to where I live. But I couldn't relate to much about this story, setting, or people. Is there any town in NC like this? When was this supposed to have taken place? Recently? Where do they drive 15 year old police cars and 25 year old trucks? Or was it supposed to be early 1980's? Did WCU have an African American football coach back then? I think it's important to know the era, because of the racial sub-theme.

This movie has a great plot line and it is well written. James Rowe did a great job on creating a simple plot and such complex characters to develop one of my top favorite movies. Tom Arnolds is a great actor and this is one of his best roles ever. This movie can convey that feeling of someone who is over powered that then turns and becomes powerful. However, we see that the main character now has to face his punishment for his deed. The best part is the idea of true friendship and how these boys band together for one another. I was surprised at the length at which these boys were willing to go for one person. It is a must watch if you have friends.

"Blue Ridge Fall" is a mediocre drama featuring some solid performances, particularly Irving, which tells of four small town buddies who through a series of bad decisions end up on the wrong side of the law. Lack of character depth and development and skirting one important issue, spousal abuse, to focus on the mechanics of the four guys' relationships, this flick manages to be something less than it might have been. As the film doggedly trudges through the story with an earthy sort of honesty it loses its sense of direction and purpose ending ambiguously. An okay watch which could have been better.

This movie was outstanding from start to finish with excellent performances from the actor and the cinematography was excellent also. The script was well written as well plus it makes you think about how far would you go to protect a friend and the ending was a tragedy in what finally happened to the characters.