Mud Review

RYAN: We just saw the new movie from Jeff Nichols called MUD, starring Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon.  It’s a coming-of-age story about a young boy dealing with meeting a stranger on a nearby island. 

CAROLINE: I really liked the trailer for this movie and I was psyched to see it.  I’m also really interested in what Matthew McConaughey is doing with his career lately.  He’s making some cool choices and I think it’s really paying off for him.

RYAN: Definitely.  And how amazing was he in last year’s Magic Mike? He was nominated for a Critics’ Choice award for that.

CAROLINE: Yeah, I like where he’s headed.  But back to MUD – this definitely has some coming-of-age elements and similarities to Stand by Me.  I really liked the boy who played the lead. 

RYAN: In the film, the boy is growing up on the other side of the tracks, if you will.  It’s a very blue collar community of boat house people.  Sarah Paulson plays the boy’s mom and I like her.  And the boy and his friend happen upon a boat stuck in a tree on an island inhabited by Matthew McConaughey who asks them for help getting the boat down and making it viable to sail.

CAROLINE: And mayhem ensues.  Just kidding – it really doesn’t, so this movie dragged for me at times.

RYAN: Matt give a good performance, except his character’s teeth are sort of messed up so it’s not his handsomest of roles. 

CAROLINE: I liked that about this role though. He’s not always going to play the hot guy like he once did.  He’s actually a really good actor.  And he’s still in fab shape, of course.

RYAN: You see Reese in the movie before she has any lines and it’s not a large part.  I like her so I wanted more of her in this movie.  And I would have loved seeing some scenes between her and Matt, but they seemed to avoid each other for the movie.  They communicate through notes.

CAROLINE: I thought Reese looked hot in this movie.  She plays sort of a trailer trashy kind of chick, which is different for her, and I thought she pulled it off.

RYAN: She’s good.  She won the Oscar for playing June Carter Cash in Walk the Line and that was a more serious role as well, but this is even more humdrum and gritty.  I still like seeing her peppy and happy though.  Michael Shannon is also in this and he starred with Jessica Chastain in this writer/director’s previous film, Take Shelter, which I liked so much more than this.  That movie was very well-paced and suspenseful, and this movie just dragged on forever and was boring.

 

CAROLINE: I liked Take Shelter too, probably more than MUD.  There’s a lot to like about MUD – the acting, the cinematography, the story – but  yes, it did feel a little short on action.  I got bored a few times.  But I don’t want to totally diss the movie since it does have a lot of good elements.

RYAN: I was just so much more drawn into Take Shelter.  This one was totally boring for the first hour and forty minutes and then picks up for the final twenty but the climax isn’t that great to really make up for how slow it all is.

CAROLINE: I totally didn’t see that ending coming; it was a little crazy.  But it worked. I didn’t think it dragged till the middle, and I didn’t find it totally boring; just boring in parts.  But I was constantly thinking, “Wow, these performances are all really good.”

— BOTTOM LINE — 

RYAN: This was just too slow for me to recommend.  I was bored and my mind was wandering so much.  I wanted to reach for my phone, check my email, look at Facebook.  The story isn’t quick enough. 

CAROLINE: I think I liked it a bit more than you, but yeah, it’s tough to recommend this movie. It’s worth watching on cable if you want to see Matthew McConaughey give a great performance.  And great acting in general.

RYAN: I love the stars but it’s just too boring and the payoff at the end isn’t dramatic enough to warrant seeing it.

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