A Walk in the Woods

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Ken Kwapis/Starring: Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, Emma Thompson, Mary Steenburgen, Nick Offerman and Kristen Schaal

Sometimes I think walking movies work better than road movies. Or maybe I'm just a sucker for them. In recent years, The Way and Wild are two movies I've really enjoyed. A film about a journey on foot allows more time for characters and situations to develop and for the possibility of adventure and reflection. Director Ken Kwapis' new film; A Walk in the Woods, adapted from bestselling travel author Bill Bryson book of the same name, has varying measures of drama, comedy and adventure. The film is a light, enjoyable romp; hardly exceptional but fun and pleasing. How persnickety Bill Bryson fans might be about Kwapis' adaptation only time will tell but having read some of his work, I can say I the film is faithful to his sense of humor, which is probably the most critical element of the adaptation. If one can ignore Redford's lack of resemblance to the author, then Bryson's fans may have little to quibble about with this film.

After attending a friend's funeral, writer Bill Bryson (Robert Redford) hatches a plan to walk the daunting Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in Maine. Though he can hardly explain his reasons for wanting to make the attempt to his wife Catherine (Emma Thompson), who is vehemently opposed to the idea, he forges ahead with plans. Though Catherine can hardly dissuade him, she nevertheless issues a proviso that he be accompanied by a friend. A amusing scene where Bryson listens to messages from those he has invited follows soon after. It is hardly surprising that all emphatically reject his idea; some even cite the discouraging statistics about how only ten percent of those who attempt the walk make it. Catherine does her part to discourage him by submitting data from the internet on grisly stories about murders, maulings and hiker disappearances on the trail.

Bryson, undeterred, resumes his preparations. His inexperience is decidedly conspicuous when he visits a hiking/camping outfitter to supply himself for the hike.

Soon after, Bryson receives a call from a "friend" man named Stephen Katz; who, in his growly, gravelly voice, asks if he can join the trek. Katz explains he learned of Bryson's idea from a mutual friend. When Catherine learns that Katz is the man on the phone, she reminds her husband of the ill-fated hike the two shared in Europe, which ended with Bryson's disdain for his walking companion. Bryson's amusing reply is that he "I started out disliking him but despised him at the end." Without an alternate, Bryson agrees reluctantly to Katz's offer.

Bryson and Catherine arrive at the airport to greet Katz (a raggedly funny Nick Nolte), whose disheveled clothes and beefy frame leave the couple skeptical about his selection as a hiking companion. After awkward greetings, Katz settles in at Bryson's home.

At a family dinner, Katz regales Bryson's family with stories about their misadventures when they walked the Camino de Santiago de Campostela in Spain and France.

In a private conversation Bryson and Katz share, we learn about the latter's alcoholism and the loss of his wife, which he has yet to overcome.

The journey itself, as one might expect, is made colorful by mishaps and the arduous nature of the hike. Watching Katz wheeze and sweat lends much hilarity to the walk, as does a chance meeting with a a garrulous young woman named Mary Ellen (the always quirky Kristen Schaal), who immediately offers critical comments about their choice of equipment. She further irritates Bryson and Katz by mocking their modest walking mileage. Annoyed beyond endurance, the two men manage to escape her by hurrying on the trail though they narrowly miss reuniting with her later, which makes for another comically suspenseful moment.

To escape Mary Ellen, Bryson and Katz decide to hitch a ride, which becomes another ordeal when they discover the young couple in the front seat hardly have their minds on the road.

The discomforts and dangers mount as the men find a trail lodge has no vacancies save for a communal room with bunk beds. Bryson's humorously tetchy exchange with a seasoned hiker shows the bracing wit for which his books are known.

The middle part of the film, where Bryson and Katz check into a motel, is cause for more hi-jinks and even some romance. The motel manager, Jeannie (the lovely and talented Mary Steenburgen) takes a shine to Bryson; making plain her amorous intentions during a chance encounter outside his room. While Bryson, ever true to Catherine, rejects her overtures, Katz manages to seduce a large woman named Beulah in a laundromat. Their assignation ends dangerously when her husband comes to the motel looking for Katz, which prompts a hasty flight from the premises.

All along the trail, Bryson and Katz engage in conversation that reflect the film's themes of mortality, loneliness, marriage, sex and their past as friends. The hike itself is a not-very-subtle journey-as-life metaphor but it doesn't bludgeon the audience with this idea.

Though Bryson and Katz struggle on the trail, moments of otherworldly beauty become serendipitous. A beautiful vista of the Smokey Mountains rewards the two men somewhat for their efforts. Bryson also dazzles Katz with his knowledge of geological history, which he lovingly calls upon when he stops to observe rock formations.

A near-fatal mishap on the trail leads to more reflection and a rescue from two hyper-fit hikers, both of whom Bryson and Katz find irritating. A kind of running gag throughout the film is Katz's insistence, in spite of Bryson's claims to the contrary, that their experiences will make a great book.

A film like A Walk in the Woods might have become tedious if stretched to a protracted running time. It's modest 104 minute length is just right for a film of its type.

The film doesn't traffic in life-affirming, smell-the-roses homilies but it does try to leaven the humor with Bryson and Katz's thoughts about their lives and expectations. Whether the men succeed in their goal of reaching the other end of the trail, whether Katz overcomes his cravings for alcohol and whether Katz and Bryson come to appreciate the other's company I will leave unanswered, though the audience may have little trouble divining plot and subplot outcomes.

I found the casting of Redford and Nolte to be very inspired and hardly obvious. They seem to have onscreen chemistry and their diametrically different body types make for a visually funny contrast. Though I enjoyed Redford as Bryson, it is Nolte who steals the show. I found his oafish, earthily slobby appearance and manner not only endearing but always good for a chuckle. Emma Thompson and Mary Steenburgen have few opportunities to shine but everything in the film and story are peripheral to Bryson and Katz and their journey.

Kwapis' film isn't a profound, poetic meditation but Bryson's books seldom are. What it is a slight but fun trifle; a gambol rather than a 1,000 mile hike. The film is A Walk in the Woods and it succeeds on those very modest terms.

Run All Night

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra/Starring: Liam Neeson, Ed Harris, Joel Kinnaman, Boyd Holbrook, Bruce McGill, Vincent D'Onofrio, Common and Nick Nolte

Liam Neeson scans his never-too-old-to-play-Mr. Badass character and faxes it to theaters in director Jaume Collet-Serra's Run All Night. Watching the nonsense unfold on-screen left me struggling to recall a role where Neeson hasn't played a former CIA operative or cop who is nigh unstoppable as an avenging angel or a tough on the run who can beat the hell out of everything that isn't nailed down or in Collet-Serra's last film Non-Stop, an Air-Marshall with kick-butt credentials. But his character Jimmy Conlon in Run All Night is different from the last half dozen, leather-jacket clad heroes he's played. How? Well, in this film he...let's see...uh...wait a minute, I know: he doesn't wear a leather jacket. See...startling contrast, right?

Sarcasm aside, Neeson hasn't exactly been too discerning with his choice of roles the last decade. Is it entirely his fault? Are there many interesting roles for middle-age men these days? Given the fact that Pierce Brosnan, Denzel Washington, Neeson, Keanu Reeves and now Sean Penn have made or are set to release films featuring themselves playing aging action figures, the pickings must be alarmingly slim.

In Collet-Serra's film, Neeson plays not a cop or a former CIA agent, but a mob hit-man who is beggining to hear the creak of his advancing years. His boss, Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris) is an old friend from his youth. Maguire's hot-headed, impetuous son Danny (Boyd Holbrook) is the Sonny Corleone of the Maguire family.

In an early scene, Jimmy watches Danny dole out cash to two New York City cops. When Jimmy enters the office to borrow $800 for a home repair, Danny doesn't disguise his disdain when he says "I don't know why my dad keeps you around." And to further humiliate Jimmy, he makes it a condition that he play Santa Claus at his father's Christmas party. When Jimmy begs Danny to spare him the indignity, the offer becomes a take it or leave it proposition.

While Jimmy performs less than admirably as Santa at the party by drinking and making passes at a fellow mob member's wife, Danny is busy negotiating a drug deal with an Albanian drug lord. The Albanians want the Maguires to exert their influence on the dock unions to facilitate the shipping and receiving of their heroin.

After Danny organizes a meeting between his father and the Albanian, the elder Maguire informs the drug dealer that his business is legitimate, which leads to his firm and prompt dismissal from the premises. Question: if the Maguire business is indeed legitimate, then why the shake-down payments to the cops?

Events take a violent turn when the miffed Albanians come to collect advanced money from Danny. Coincidentally, the Albanians are driven to the meeting by Jimmy's estranged son Mike (Joel Kinnaman), who moonlights as a livery driver but is in no way connected to the underworld. The coincidence seems a bit much but it isn't a major transgression against plausibility.

After the Albanians forcefully demand their money, Danny responds in kind; brutally dispatching both Albanians. When Mike witnesses the murders, Danny gives chase and before he meets the same fate, Jimmy arrives to plug his boss/friend's son. Of course it isn't long before Maguire uses his far-reaching resources to discover (though erroneously) Mike was behind his son's murder. Recognizing the threat to his son, Jimmy meets with Maguire to petition for his life, only to be told he will come after Mike with everything he has, with the threat extended to Jimmy. So begins the hunt and evade plot that only becomes more ridiculous with every passing minute.

Naturally the movie is also about Jimmy reconciling with his son and assuaging Mike's anger for having left the family when he was young. We learn Jimmy left the family to spare them his rough and tumble way of life; a move he sees as some sort of compassionate gesture.

Taking place during one night (hence the title), it is fairly apparent where the story will go; the father and son play hide and seek with Maguire's thugs while protecting Mike's wife and children.

But Jimmy is no tulip; he manages to fight off and kill everyone on his trail until Maguire calls for another hitman named Andrew Price (Common) to finish off his nemesis.

Did I mention the stock character, Detective Harding (Vincent D'Onofrio), who has devoted part of his career to bringing down Jimmy for his prodigious body count, and who is also hot on his trail? In a strange and yet another comical plot development, Jimmy beseeches Harding for help in bringing down Maguire; offering up the list of men he's rubbed out as compensation.

Sillier and sillier the story becomes. Why Maguire would hire a purported crack assassin, who proves to be nothing more than a clumsy oaf with little cunning or finesse, is a perplexing conundrum.

Another eye-roller is the scene where Jimmy chases Maguire through a train-yard. The sequence is troubling for many reasons. The setting is such a action movie chestnut and doesn't add a crumb of suspense or tension to the story. As Jimmy and Maguire stalk one another around the yard, I wondered why didn't one or the other merely look under the carts to locate and shoot or wound his foe. And if Maguire was so enraged by his son's death that he was willing to kill his old friend and his son alike, while sacrificing nearly all his crew in the process, why does he run and hide from Jimmy at all? Why not stand his ground and avenge his son?

I didn't care much what happened to any of the characters, even Jimmy. I guess the screenplay deity presiding over this film demanded that every character adhere to time-honored cliches and not stray from a rigid story outline. I can't hold the cast responsible. At times, Harris and Neeson manage to free their lines from must have read as vacuous on the page. Harris can make a compelling bad guy if he's given solid dialogue and a character to work with. D'Onofrio and Nick Nolte are mostly wasted. It's almost as if both their characters were penned into the script after the final draft was submitted. Another talent wasted is the terrific character actor Bruce McGill, who is reduced to playing what must have read in the screenplay as Tough Guy #1.

Collet-Serra's directorial tic in his new film is the series of stylish, pull, pan and zoom shots that play throughout the film. The camera pulls up from one setting to an aerial shot of the city then pans to another location before zooming in on another. It's a gimmicky, visual quirk that becomes quickly irritating after it's employed a few times.

As the film wound down, I found myself often chuckling and sighing heavily at the nonsense on-screen until the mess mercifully ended.

I think President Obama should devote a State of the Union Address to Liam Neeson's career rut.

Please Mr. Neeson, I think you're a terrific, charismatic actor; no more tough guys with guns for awhile, okay? Give some other actors an opportunity to play these clowns for a change. Hollywood, I implore you too to cast against type in these roles. Why not let Lena Dunham play the badass for once? I know, it's dumb, but it could it be any worse?