Direction: Gavin O’Connor
Country: USA
The eighth feature film from American director Gavin O’Connor (Tumbleweed; Warrior), The Way Back, is a clichéd and overlong mix of addiction drama and revitalizing sports, whose unbalanced parts diminish the force of the whole.
Ben Affleck (Argo; Gone Girl) stars as the miserable Jack Cunningham, a construction worker and former basketball all-star who spends his nights drinking like a fish as a consequence of the loss of his little son to cancer and subsequent separation from his wife, Angela (Janina Gavankar). The first opportunity for redemption arises when he’s invited to coach the catholic high school basketball team of Bishop Hayes. Jack reformulates the team, promoting the introverted Brandon Durrett (Brandon Wilson) to captain. The latter lacks confidence, going through a similar problem with his father as Jack went in his youth. But miracles do happen, and the team step up efforts to reach the playoffs, having a sober Jack at the helm. Yet, a relapse puts everything in jeopardy.
While the script by Brad Ingelsby (The Dynamiter; Out of Furnace) never quite crackles as it might, O’Connor tries to infuse some heart in the execution, only succeeding from the sports point of view. In the end, regardless of an Affleck fully committed to his role, we have an ordinary film, respectable in terms of message but with a superfluous flair for melodrama.
The Way Back brings nothing new and its authors seem satisfied with the overdramatic artifice set to obstruct imagination.
