‘The Longest Ride’ is indeed long
Starring Scott Eastwood, Britt Robertson, Jack Huston, Oona Chaplin, Alan Alda; directed by George Tillman Jr.; 124 minutes, PG-13 for some sexuality, partial nudity, and some war and sports action
The pretty coed doesn’t want to go, doesn’t seeing herself “as a rodeo gal.” But her sorority sisters insist she ogle the “easy on the eyes” cowboys with them.
He rides a bull, falls off and loses his hat. She picks it up as he dusts himself off. Her blue eyes lock with his blue eyes.
“Keep it,” he grins, and she pokes the dirt and sawdust with the toe of her cowgirl boot to show she’s interested.
Welcome to Nicholas Sparks’ world. Welcome to “The Longest Ride.”
Clint Eastwood’s son Scott stars as laconic Luke, an archetypal Sparks hero – quiet, brave, courtly. Britt Robertson is Sophia Danko, the Wake Forest University art history major about to graduate, but about to find herself distracted by the handsome, fatalistic rodeo cowboy.
It’s not a question of if he’ll get hurt, he drawls, “it’s when, and how hard.”
Their old-fashioned first date ends with him rescuing an old man (Alan Alda) from a car wreck. She recovers the man’s precious box of mementos – a Purple Heart, old love letters. And in reading those to the old man in the hospital, she and Luke learn of a great love of the past and what it takes to achieve such a love – in Nicholas Sparks’ world.
Director George Tillman Jr. manages stunningly real bull riding scenes and gives his winsome young stars plenty of room to shine, though neither rises above dull. But the moment that first letter is opened and its trite, moony expressions of love and pointless (in a love letter) pages of exposition are narrated, the movie turns Sparks-insipid. The man’s a broken record.
Roger Moore, Tribune News Service
In this image released by 20th Century Fox, Scott Eastwood portrays Luke, a former champion bull rider looking to make a comeback, in a scene from “The Longest Ride.” (AP Photo/20th Century Fox, Michael Tackett)
In this image released by 20th Century Fox, Scott Eastwood portrays Luke, a former champion bull rider looking to make a comeback, in a scene from “The Longest Ride.” (AP Photo/20th Century Fox, Michael Tackett)