Starts out strong, but ultimately loses its steam, The Place Beyond the Pines is a well directed and well acted flick, unfortunately bogged down by slow pacing and an over-ambitious nature. The film is very well cast, and very well acted, with Ryan Gosling's performance as Luke proving to be quite a memorable character and experience to watch. Other shoutouts go to Ben Mendelsohn, Eva Mendes, and Dane DeHaan, who also provide some quite great performances, especially Mendelsohn who is fantastic in every scene that he takes part in. The film is very well directed, with some stunningly beautiful and poignant cinematography, fit with some truly remarkable shots and points of view that prove to be one of the strongest, and most consistent aspects of the film in total. The film starts out very strong, with Gosling's role taking charge, but as the story begins to grow and change about halfway through, the film takes a dive in its pacing, and becomes far too slow to be enjoyable. The sudden change in pacing, and lack of interest in familiar plotlines proves to put the film in an awkward position. It starts out ambitious, but ends rather averagely, with its ambitious nature still trying to take charge throughout its overlong runtime, but it losing charge more and more as it goes on. It's tropes and plot twists can be unique at times, but the plotline seems to dragged out for them to prove to be of much worth. It can be very unique at times, with director Derek Cianfrance providing a very rich sense of atmosphere and tone throughout, but unfortunately the writing can undermine his hard work on the screen, and end up seeming flatter than it should be. In the end, The Place Beyond the Pines has some very impressive aspects throughout, most notably its cinematography and Gosling and Mendelsohn's performance's, but ultimately has too many flaws in pacing and other aspects to keep it from being the truly ambitious and great film it could have been and still tries to be.
My Rating: 7.5/10