Around the Bend

I found this in a video store and with the great cast (not always a good indicator!) and the list of awards won I took a chance on it being good. As is often the case when you have little expectation you are most pleasantly surprised. I thought the characters were wonderful the setting and photography beautiful and the soundtrack really made it. There are also nice little touches where an item seen in a passing shot has a connection to something later in the film.

The only weakness I felt was Josh Lucas in the role of the child's father. It was hard to make any genetic connection with the characters played by Michael Caine or Christopher Walken. It's not that his acting was poor he just didn't seem to fit in. Please try and see the movie - I doubt that you'll be disappointed.

I can not recommend the first twenty minutes of this film enough. These are the 20 minutes containing some of the best work by Christopher Walken and Michael Caine, or perhaps any film actors in history. Everything about the beginning of this movie leads one to believe that this is going to be a great family drama/comedy. Unfortunately the film takes an odd turn and becomes a road film thats nowhere near as tight and focused as the start. Esssentially this is the story of fathers and sons and crimes unforgiven. The idea of the road trip is to put the skeletons to rest and to bring peace and closure to a very wounded family. The cast of this film that makes up the four male generations of this broken family is excellent. They make a real go at making what happens believable, even though once the VW micro-bus hits the road it falls apart with plot holes and inconsistency. Its never bad, but its never what the first part of this film promised. Still its worth renting or seeing on cable for two of the greatest performances I've ever seen.

I was the composer on this film, and while I recognise that that fact may taint me as blindly partisan on its behalf, I still have to say that

A) I have never seen audiences respond with such obvious affection and warmth towards anything that I've ever worked on, (even including my terminally unemotional engineer, who actually cried, something I never expected in a million years that I would ever see, and doubt that I will again. )

and B)... Just give it a chance. If you hate it, so you blew 20 bucks and a couple hours. feel free to send me a nasty email, and if you make a convincing enough case, maybe i'll personally refund your 20. I doubt I'll have to. This is a wonderful film, made by the kind of person and for the kinds of reasons that we all need to support, if we care at all about what we do, and how it affects people. And I mean people, not industry professionals. See it with a civilian audience, as a human being, and you will be rewarded. This is a splendid movie, and Walken is stunning, and this is one where you just have to take the big city critics with a grain of salt. This movie was not made for them. It wasn't made for professional opinion makers. It was made for you. And yes, I may be prejudiced, but I don't think so.

David Baerwald

This movie was definitely true to life. It made you laugh, it made you cry and it made you think. And wow, what a cast. Michael Caine, Christopher Walken, Josh Lucas and little Jonah Bobo (I see great things from this youngster in the future).

You can see the indifference right way when Jason (Lucas) calls his grandfather (Caine) and his estranged father (Walken) by their first names. Grandfather Henry's joy with the return of his son Turner and the family together again is short lived when his son announces he's only staying the night. Determined to bring the family back together, he plans a 'burial' trip that all family members, his son; his grandson and his great-grandson, must partake in as terms of his will. This is where the road to discovery begins.

If anyone has had family situations that need to be rectified in order to bring the family back together, this film will most assuredly put the spark in your heart to do so.

Extremely touching road movie around four generations of males whose relationships have become fractured in the past.

It's not made completely clear at the start, but Michael Caine is the great grandfather, Christopher Walken is the grandfather, Josh Lucas the father and the charming Jonah Bobo as the grandson. The family are reunited and Caine's character tasks them with a request in his will that his ashes be scattered near his favourite fast food restaurants throughout picturesque New Mexico (bizarre product placement).

Walken had disappeared from the family unit, with some resentment from all, and returns to the family and finds himself agreeing to fulfil his father's wishes. Throughout the journey, the family bonds are re-established and a gradual understanding of the characters grows and their past revealed.

This is a beautiful story, told at a gentle but entrancing pace, is truly moving and I recommend it highly. It's not very long, but within Walken is given great time and space to truly demonstrate his talents.