Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper Star in One of the Best Crime Movies of the 2010s

Both Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper have starred in critically acclaimed and commercially successful films over the past twenty years. Gosling rose to fame in the early 2000s with The Notebook, solidified his place in the industry with La La Land, and pleasantly stunned audiences with his Oscar-nominated role in Barbie. Cooper made a name for himself with The Hangover movies, but he showed everyone what he was truly capable of when he played Pat Solitano in the Silver Linings Playbook. Unfortunately, not all their projects have been box office hits that ushed in awards recognition. Among those, a crime thriller released in 2012, starring both of them, fits that description. Despite that, the movie remains one of the best crime films released in the 2010s, with both Gosling and Cooper delivering performances of a lifetime.

The Place Beyond the Pines Is a Tale of Trauma Across Generations

The Place Beyond the Pines is not an ordinary crime movie. Directed by Derek Cianfrance, the film is a subtle tragedy and a thriller that at first follows Gosling’s character, Luke, as he does everything in his power to be a good dad. Luke is a motorcycle artist in a traveling carnival. While passing through Schenectady, New York, he tracks down an old girlfriend, Romina (Eve Mendes), only to discover that she gave birth to his son and had been raising him on her own. Determined to stand by his newfound family, he quits his old job to become a mechanic, only to be led to a life of crime by his boss. Together, they pull off a series of spectacular bank heists.

Things are finally looking up for Luke when he gets into a fight with Romina’s boyfriend and ends up going to prison. Romina bails him out, but he risks his safety again by trying to pull off another heist alone. He is caught, cornered, and shot dead by Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), a new cop who had been attempting to advance his career in a department rife with corruption. Their story doesn’t end there, though. The events of their first and only meeting have a ripple effect that affects their families even 15 years later.

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The Place Beyond the Pines explores multiple interesting themes in the span of less than two and a half hours, but most importantly it follows three generations of fathers, each well-meaning but still making mistakes in their own unique ways. The film highlights the effects of generational trauma, how it can change lives even decades after the traumatic event.

In Luke, we meet a helpless new father, led to a life of crime he cannot escape. In Avery, we discover an honest cop who carries the guilt of killing Luke with him, even as he is declared a hero, helps clean the department’s corruption, and runs for Attorney General of New York. But it is their two sons — A.J. (Emory Cohen) and Jason (Dane DeHaan) — who really drive the tragedy of the situation home. The two best friends are ripped apart when they discover their fathers’ relationship, prompting Jason, Luke’s son, to go on a warpath. Driven by the need to connect to his father, Jason makes dangerous decisions that could lead him down the same path as Luke. 

For a crime tragedy, The Place Beyond the Pines is oddly subtle. It carefully explores the characters’ emotions, their stories, hopes, and dreams. The film never overwhelms you with emotion. It never leaves you traumatized, but a slow, deliberate sadness tends to creep over you as you watch a hapless father lose everything on his quest to become a good dad.

Gosling and Cooper deliver one of the most intense and impactful performances of their careers in this film. While Gosling goes from the charming biker and doting dad to stone-cold robber in seconds, Cooper’s character is determined, guilt-ridden, and following in the footsteps of his own father. Cianfrance showed us the many miseries that abound in a bad marriage in his 2010 film Blue Valentine. In The Place Beyond the Pines, he gives us a tragedy about fathers and sons, and trauma that echoes across generations.

You can stream The Place Beyond the Pines on Netflix.