Review

The Longest Ride

DF-17649_17599r	Luke (Scott Eastwood) and Sophia (Britt Robertson) enjoy getting to know each other while dining al fresco.  Photo credit:  Michael Tackett
DF-17649_17599r Luke (Scott Eastwood) and Sophia (Britt Robertson) enjoy getting to know each other while dining al fresco. Photo credit: Michael Tackett

Before the screening of The Longest Ride, the theater owner played a YouTube clip of a dog, made up to look like a bull, leaping around as a rag doll rode on its back. As the dog's movement became more frenzied, the doll really did look as if it were holding on for dear life.

That 30-second clip was more consistently entertaining and edifying and full of wonder than the 139-minute feature that followed.

The Longest Ride

Grade: 71

Cast: Britt Robertson, Scott Eastwood, Alan Alda, Jack Huston, Oona Chaplin, Melissa Benoist, Lolita Davidovich

Director: George Tillman Jr.

Rating: PG-13, for some sexuality, partial nudity, and some war and sports action

Running Time: 139 minutes

Like most adaptations of Nicholas Sparks novels, The Longest Ride manages to suck all the vitality, credibility and passion from romance. Sparks produced this one himself, so every irrelevant detail, every corny line of dialogue ("Love requires sacrifice") and every shrill supporting character makes it into the final cut. Without having trudged through the novel itself, it's hard to tell what comes from Sparks' pen or the adaptation, but little of it is genuinely moving.

Director George Tillman Jr. (Soul Food, Men of Honor) is credited with directing the movie but, frankly, it's hard to tell the difference between his work and the work of anyone else who has made a film of a Sparks book like A Walk to Remember and The Best of Me.

About the only thing that feels authentic is the genuine North Carolina scenery, which has more depth, sincerity and beauty than the people who inhabit it.

To be fair, Alan Alda is actually terrific as Ira Levinson, a retired merchant who has survived a horrific car accident that could have killed a younger man in better shape. Stuck with injuries that probably won't heal before he dies, Ira is understandably cranky, even if his old love letters to his wife, Ruth (Oona Chaplin, Geraldine's daughter and Sir Charles' granddaughter), reveal a hopeless romantic beneath his prickly exterior.

On second thought, Ira may be irritable because he's the most interesting character in a story dominated by attractive but not terribly fascinating young adults.

The Longest Ride is actually about professional bull rider Luke Collins (Scott Eastwood, who is indeed Clint's son) and his attraction to Wake Forest University art student Sophia Danko (Britt Robertson).

He wants to ride angry beef until he's too battered to do so anymore, and she wants to return to the North to sell contemporary art. The film includes a lot of gags that sneer at abstract paintings and the foolhardy thrills of lasting eight seconds on top of a bull. Apparently the filmmakers don't care much about either art or bull riding because both worlds get shortchanged in the film.

Sparks' story lines don't progress so much as they drag from one annoyingly predictable plot point to another. With a dearth of romantic rivals or genuine obstacles to the coupling that happens before the opening credits, the path to love seems drearily dull.

Ira's subplot is more interesting for a variety of reasons. For one thing, Jack Huston (Boardwalk Empire), who plays Ira in the flashbacks, and Chaplin have much more to work with than their contemporary peers and appear to be more accomplished thespians. Eastwood and Robertson get to cry lots of glycerin sobs, but the manipulation is so painfully obvious it's impossible to shed any ­real tears in response.

It doesn't help that a big love scene happens after Sophia has fallen into mud and cowpies and borrows Luke's shower. Even with attractive specimens like Eastwood and Robertson, it's not the sort of thing that leads to desire.

It is somewhat refreshing to see a Sparks adaptation that has a little more narrative ambition than its predecessors. Ira is a World War II veteran, and Ruth and her family are refugees of the Holocaust. Naturally, their issues seem a good deal more pressing than Luke and Sophia's.

Unfortunately, the brief battlefield scene looks amusingly anemic, and there is a proliferation of annoyingly cheesy pseudo-European accents. In the end, Sparks has moldily gone where many better writers have gone before. Perhaps the dog in the YouTube video could give Sparks some better ideas.

MovieStyle on 04/10/2015

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