1 MILE TO YOU

1 MILE TO YOU 

1 MILE TO YOU = C- 

It's hard to be critical of a film that meant well. When you can see that a film at least tried hard to be good, it's not easy to criticize it. Yet, in the end effort only takes you so far. You have to judge based on results.

I start with the positives. Graham Rogers gave an honest and striving performance. His work ethic as an actor is quite impressive. I'll also give praise to Billy Crudup, who almost always gives solid performances. Wish he would have played the role a little more grounded, closer to his performance in BIG FISH, but perhaps the script and director Leif Tilden wouldn't allow it. Not sure.

It's a shame that neither Rogers nor Crudup had much to work with in this film and that's where my criticism begins.

To sum it up, this film's biggest problem was underdevelopment. The story was underdeveloped. The characters were severely underdeveloped and their relationships to one another even more underdeveloped.

Roger's character Kevin's loyalty to Crudup's character, Coach K was revealed BEFORE the story got to that point. Points in a relationship happen in chronological order. You have to date first before you can break up. The breakup can't happen first. And to make an analogy, that's what a lot of the movie felt like. Things happening out of natural order. In an order that made no sense.

It's not like the potential for something wasn't there, because it was, but so many of the characters and so many of the scenes seemed unimportant and pointless. Like they wanted so bad to have purpose, but they didn't.

Tilden's usage of slow motion and his back and forth between serious drama and fantasy also didn't work. The fantasy scenes took away from the emotion that would have other wise been felt.

This film may have suffered from bad editing. Can't help but feel that cut scenes would have made for a better story.

And while I usually love Peter Coyote, I didn't care for him in this. A man with such an epic voice, only second to Morgan Freeman in my opinion, shouldn't try and hide it with a phony southern accent.

Had a promising story and again good performances out of Rogers and Crudup, but thus far 2017's most underdeveloped film.

C-.