I had high hopes for this movie, but the main characters commit adultery, robbery and murder, all without any consequences whatsoever, and life just rolls happily on. This is probably Dennis Quaid's worst work ever. He hammed and overacted all the way through. Heather Graham's role was completely unnecessary and served no purpose. Zac Efron was the only bright spot in the movie, giving a solid performance and showing his A-list potential. The wife's character is an ignorant and gullible fool, and either they have a totally incompetent police department in that town, or else the screenwriters are, because this script is unrealistic trash with gaping plot holes throughout. It's a shame, because so much more could have been told about the problems facing family farms today, but this movie is a total waste of time.

You will have to watch this one it is a family story. From a family perspective. But it's just not your family. You get to see how truly hollow some people are. How they are just a fine film or puff of something attached to a smile floating through a room just trying to get through another day. Dennis Quaid plays that hollow puff of a man, and he plays him well. There are so many layers to this family that you will be taken to some surprising places. I Enjoyed this movie quite a bit, though the people in it need to be smacked awake, the player playing them are all top notch, and the production is very clean, and never feels cheap, just down to earth, and from the perspective of real people. You don't need my recommendation, but you have it for this movie, and I know you will be glad you spent a couple of hours with the Whipples.

AT ANY PRICE (dir. Ramin Bahrani) If the film had just developed a single tangent, such as the troubled relationship between a father and son without all the other thematic distractions, it might have worked. Dennis Quaid turns in an exceptional performance as a GMO mega-farmer whose family has owned the land for four generations, yet no one in his family seems the slightest bit interested in continuing in the business of farming. However, because so many story angles are opened up and explored, the film loses focus. There's the story of the two sons- one is off climbing mountains in South America while the other aspires to excel on the NASCAR circuit, and then there is the sub-plot of the father's questionable dealings with genetically modified crop seeds, his sexual infidelity with one of his old high school cheerleader pals (by the way, they don't appear to have attended high school within two decades of each other), and the 'professional' relationship with his youngest son's teen-aged girlfriend (possibly the brightest point of the film). And finally there's that unfortunate second degree homicide that pops up out of the blue. It seems that the intent was to produce a film where the whole was greater than the sum of its parts, but AT ANY PRICE flounders and struggles with a handful of disparate elements that don't add up to much of anything except a credible performance by Dennis Quaid. As Archie Bell and The Drells used to say, 'Do The Tighten Up!'

after watching I was surprised by its low IMDb rating (5.6 currently). I liked it, it held my attention, felt on its own it was entertaining and was one of those I think to myself "I'm glad I watched that". I'm not a film critic or film-making buff so don't know mechanically what makes a movie good, it's more a thing of you know it when you see it.to be fair before writing this I read some of the less favorable reviews and can see they have their points. but in imd-land the mid-5s kinds of movies are getting into the range where a movie is clearly not well-thought of and it's hard to see how that can be true of this one. also I don't watch previews/trailers or really read much besides the brief IMDb synopsis at the top so maybe my lack of expectation helps.I watched this because I like dennis quaid, he's one of those actors that on the screen I find easy to like and his performances are usually good. this isn't the kind of role I'm used to seeing from him (the clever/charming/gregarious kind of guy) but I thought he played it quite well.the overarching theme seems to be there's no overarching theme. it was more or less an hour and a half of stuff involving people that happened to be in iowa, some of which happened to be farmers. it didn't seem to me it was pushing any kind of viewpoint, we just get to witness some unusual things that can make one think "what would I have done in that spot?" it almost had the dryness of a documentary in that there's no crescendos (musically or otherwise) trying to tell the audience what to feel where. to me the movie was more about what's inside the characters rather than what happens externally when they interact. from that standpoint I wasn't put off by some of the disjointedness other reviewers rightfully point out.I did notice in hindsight once the movie was over that much of it seemed formulaic and had many of the kinds of twists every other movie has, but what struck me was being engrossed enough that as it unfolded I didn't really notice until it was over with.bottom line for me is it was entertaining and worth the time spent watching it.