Luke (Ryan Gosling) is a bad boy motorcycle rider who travels with a circus and has one night stands. Eva Mendes was one of those conquests. A year or so later they meet again. She has his child and a boyfriend (Mahershala Ali). Luke doesn't want to be an absentee father and forces his way into their life through gifts which he pays for with his newly acquired bank robbing addiction.About 50 minutes into the film, we are introduced another main character, policeman Avery (Bradley Cooper). Then act three start about 40 minutes later (16years or so) with all the children grown and only Eva Mendes among the adults looking any older.The ending is supposed to be heart warming, but doesn't make it. The film is long, but it is not deep. The action moves like a man running with one shoe nailed in place. I never felt for any of the characters. The scene with Bradley Cooper crying was just horrible. That was grade B acting topping off a stiff performance. Gosling on the other hand gave us a strong performance and Mendes was never developed. What was her problem? She wants him, she doesn't want him, she wants him, she doesn't want him.It wants to cycle back, but then sputters, it doesn't take off. It might make do for a Redbox rental.Parental Guide: F-bomb, after sex scene, no nudity.

Rayan Gosling and Eva Mendes on their PEAK performance, Bradly Cooper did really well and rest was good enough. Glorious directional work. Awesome story from very first scene grabbing you altogether then keep rising till middle then story line falling slowly and till the end story line reaches to its Okay level.Could be a lot a lot better if story in second and third part could had been reviewed by director before making it.

'The Place Beyond The Pines' This 2012 film is one of the best films ever. Totally cinematic with characters to love and die for, its a roller coaster ride of emotions and my favourite 'stay'. I love the 'slow' pace of it and the characters taking their time to react. They don't just say the lines, the become the characters. Maybe I am sadist but this was just my type of a slow and hyper-emotional films where the characters are fighting with inner conflicts. In fact every single character is fighting his own battle.'Luke''s life takes a turn when he finds out he has a baby he didn't know about. He choses to swap his life of somewhat fame and easy money and carelessness for an opportunity to be with his son and the mother of his son who is now with another man. His guilt of not being their for his mother takes precedence. As a result he chose a life of crime. To be his honest his character is somewhat unstable that loses the path of life and head for the wrong direction. 'Romina' the mother of the child too has a conflict, her's is about her duty as a mother towards his child for which she choses to be with another man, another 'stable' man and for a stable life for herself and her child; her conflict is that she might still be in love with Luke but for the sake of her child's life she decides not to be with Luke.'Avery' the cop is riddled with his own dilemma; he has his friends and colleagues on one side but on the other is his fight with his conscience which forces him to 'rat' these corrupt cops out. This is compounded by his every present guilt of killing 'Luke' by mistake. Even after years, Avery feels a sense of responsibility towards Romina and her child and tries to help them in whatever way he can.It is simply an amazing film with amazing performances. I would certainly reccomend it to anyone who loves cinema and storytelling. Amazing shot with a sense of melancholy and with lovely music this is a must watch film. BTW this is the 2nd time I have watched it and I watched it cos I remembered how awesome it felt the first time I watched it.My ratings: 9/10 ********* MUST WATCH!!! Its a complete film!!!!

When I first looked into this I thought it would be some boring melodramatic indie film, but thankfully I was wrong. This movie was definitely consistently interesting and by no means boring, but had the story been told in a different order, and not simply chronological, it could've been a lot better. The direction was really good and filled with lots of tension and the story as a whole was pretty interesting.Gosling sold his part for me even though I'm really not the biggest fan of his, but I really hated the character and liked seeing him lose so many times. I actually ended up not liking any of the four male lead characters in this. Cooper's was stupid and didn't earn my respect from the get go, and Cohen's really annoyed me. DeHaan's was probably the most likable, but even then, not much.Technically, almost all the camera-work was hand-held which got dizzying and many shots could have been significantly more effective if a track or dolly was used.In the end, it was an interesting movie, but could have been much better had there not been so many missed opportunities.