What's going on guys? I'm Tyler and I'm here to let you know that "The Way Back" is NoPerfectMovie!
And it centers on Ben Affleck as an alcoholic who's
recruited out of the blue by his old high school to become their new basketball coach and
as you can expect from a movie like this as he becomes coach, he improves the team not just on the court-
but the players themselves in their own lives, but the movie also makes us wonder:
If he can be such an influence to his players, can he influence himself in order to improve his own life?
That is one of the major... MAJOR pluses of this movie. Ben Affleck is so natural in this performance and a lot of people-
Himself included, have chalked it up to the fact that this was this movie was a form of therapy to him
in order to recover from the stints of alcoholism and rehab that he's gone through in his own life.
But what surprised me the most about this character was the fact that
he is a man who's basically hired to teach kids not to do things that
he would do in his own life and a lot of people are gonna say "Well that just makes him hypocritical and a terrible influence"...
Of course it does! That's the whole point! The movie
gives us a flawed protagonist that we want to root for-
And do root for a lot in the moments that we need to be. When he is a basketball coach
he's putting a hundred and ten percent effort to
make sure these kids don't necessarily win, but at least have respect for one another, have respect for the game they're playing-at least have fun. And when he is in his own spare time, and he is
drinking himself to death. Yeah, it absolutely is pathetic, but
the thing is...
Affleck never goes over the top during,
really-any of the scenes that he's in. When he's shouting-when he's cursing at referees or his own players
It feels natural, it never felt...
"movie-ish" if that makes any sense.
And when we see glimpses of his tragic past that have influenced himself as an alcoholic and when we see him being
forced to talk to it by his wife-who also gives a really good performance he never...
he never tries to act too hard. He just sits there,
he lets his emotions play out through his facial expressions and his body language,
he's really good at naturally crying - and all the
stuff from his past that in real life that he puts into this performance it really shows-especially when he shows that he knows that real-life alcoholics don't just
burst out, flip-out, start throwing everything. They just sit there, they reflect on their own pain,
they either say nothing because it's just too hard to bear or they let it out softly and quietly because...
It's just the only way they know how!
Now a friend of mine asked me after I saw the movie if this was basically a "Coach Carter" ripoff?
And I wouldn't go so far as to say that, there are similarities but "Coach Carter" was about the students,
not just improving as a team, but improving academically and personally.
This movie is really about Affleck
realizing that he can be a good person if he lets himself be, so the team doesn't really get any scenes just to themselves.
But out of all the people on the team that stand out the two in particular are Al Madrigal as the assistant coach who is
a very mild-mannered individual.
He has the potential to be head coach himself,
but he has a lot of personal problems and he's kind of there to be the mild-mannered
moral center when Affleck is lashing out at referees or at his own players, and he's there to say "I know you're right, but
there are other ways to say what you want to, so...
try and cool it please" and I really appreciated that. And out of all the players
Brandon Wilson was really good as this kid who has the potential to be captain, but
he's too shy to say anything other than "yes coach", "no coach" or just motion to his own players and Affleck is there to
push him as constructively as he can in order to make him scream and shout when they're on the court Affleck is at the very
back of the stadium. He's like, "Hey, I can't fucking hear you! You gotta let yourself-You gotta let yourself be heard, come on"!
And those scenes were not only really funny but they really struck a chord with me because in high school I...
was just like this kid. I didn't want to say anything. I didn't want anyone to pay attention to me because...
Well a variety of different reasons and Affleck has the most
personal scenes with this character and they worked so well.
And it goes without saying that Gavin O'Connor is a really good director when it comes to sports movies.
I mean the dude made "Miracle" & "Warrior"! He has predictable sports movies down to a tee.
And as you can expect, he knows how to make the basketball scenes feel really
exciting but also intense. Sometimes the camerawork is a little hard to follow-
I wasn't expecting ESPN coverage or anything but considering these high school kids are allowed to slam dunk and I...
Never saw that when I played high school basketball, they might as well have gone for .it
But either way it all looked raw, it looked realistic, it looked on the spot.
There are a lot of hand-held shots throughout the entire movie that make it feel as if they're capturing the moment as
It happens, as if these moments felt improvised.
Especially during the more personal scenes where Affleck is all by himself;
It'll start off with this huge wide that makes him feel very isolated and it'll slowly
zoom in on him just to like hit it close to home that he wants to improve himself, but he's just emotionally unable to.
There's one flaw about the direction that I kept noticing was that
because they try to be naturalistic and improvisational, there are a lot of lens flares that get in the frame that are
incredibly distracting and really huge because...
I'm not entirely sure but I think this movie was filmed in widescreen and you can really get the sense that
these moments just happened and they're like
"Well, we want this to feel like on the spot. So we're not gonna get rid of that", and I
understand that but you could have you could have done like one or two takes without them personally.
I don't know what else to say
other than "The Way Back" is probably the most fun that I've had watching a movie so far this year.
Affleck is really good, the kids that play his students are also really good,
they could have been given a little more naturalistic dialogue as opposed to just relying on cursing in front of their teachers.
I love the fact that they're able to get away with it. I fucking wish I did...
But yeah Affleck was really good, O'Connor was a really good director,
the script was respectful of the fact that the audience knows how
predictavle he movie is and knows that we're just here for the ride and the ride was extremely well executed.
And I'm gonna get The Way Back" 4/5
Guys, thanks as always for watching if you've seen "The Way Back",
be sure to let me know what your thoughts on the movie were, and be sure to like and subscribe.
Take care!