MD - The Place Beyond The Pines & The Look of Love

The Place Beyond The Pines is a story in three acts with ever diminishing returns. A slow paced engaging character study, becomes formulaic crime thriller becomes teen angst. It’s all about father, sons, dynasty and destiny but the shifts of pace and focus are jarring – and the more time we spend with some of the characters the more their ambiguity niggles. A disappointment from what could have been.

And are there three more fearful words on the front credits than “And Ray Liotta”? Just how often can an actor play the same character again and again…

….Ah-ha. Steve Cougan - all limitations and Partridgisms - depicts Paul Raymond rise, plateau and personal decline. It frantically and unsatisfactorily flips through dozens of years until eventually homing in on the relationship with his daughter as a narrative drive. Frankly, it's a bit of a mess. The tight, controlled (no pun intended) focus writer Matt Greenhalgh brought to Control and Nowhere Boy is sacrificed here for comic snapshots.  This story could have been interesting had it focused on one part of Raymond's life - UK's most expensive divorce? Lord Chamberlain court case? But by speeding through all sorts of tones, subsidiary characters and distracting cameos it becomes tedious. Anna Friel emerges with most credit as the spurned wife.

The Place beyond The Pines 5/10

The Look of Love 4/10