The Peanut Butter Falcon 2019
I don’t remember this movie coming out, but saw that it had good reviews once it was on disc. I almost bought it, but wound up watching on Amazon Prime instead and maybe for the better. It is kind of a classic low budget indie movie about a couple of misfits on a road trip along the North Carolina shore. Shia LaBeouf does a good job playing a troubled tidewater fisherman playing sort of a big brother to Zack Gottasgen’s character who has Down syndrome, just like the actor. The scenery seems a little marshy for the Outer Banks (and in fact was filmed in Georgia) but makes a good backdrop for what turns out to be a buddy movie with a lot of bonding. To me the characters and plot were not that compelling. Gottasgen gives it his all but is sometimes a little hard to understand and some of the scenes felt a little too much like the two actors hanging out. There are some tie-ins to professional wrestling which doesn’t do anything for me. The acting from many of the side characters isn’t that good. If you’re in the right mood, as a lot of people must have been for it to get positive reviews, you could enjoy a lot of the funny vignettes and maybe overly easy redemption, but it seems like we are being told a straightforward story we have heard before. The movie feels a lot like 2013’s Mud, but with less mystery and suspense and a weaker cast. This is an enjoyable enough movie, but I was hoping for a little more.
Written: 23 Dec 2020