SummaryZak (Zack Gottsagen), a young man with Down syndrome, runs away from a residential nursing home to follow his dream of attending the professional wrestling school of his idol, The Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Church). A strange turn of events pairs him on the road with Tyler (Shia LaBeouf), a small time outlaw on the run, who become...
SummaryZak (Zack Gottsagen), a young man with Down syndrome, runs away from a residential nursing home to follow his dream of attending the professional wrestling school of his idol, The Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Church). A strange turn of events pairs him on the road with Tyler (Shia LaBeouf), a small time outlaw on the run, who become...
Cliches aside, there's something at work in The Peanut Butter Falcon, something eccentric and exuberant. Nilson and Schwartz's devotion to the details of Zac's world highlights Gottsagen's funny and intelligent performance, giving the film an authenticity it wouldn't otherwise have.
Flabbygums clearly doesn't know what a great movie is, and has horrible taste in movies, obviously. "whoever gives this a 10 shouldn't be reviewing movies". Riggghhht....
Great acting, great cast, great heart-warming story. This movie was brilliant. Zero flaws.
Whether the climax, which veers close to magical realism and even closer to cloying, undoes the good will its built up will defend on the filmgoer. But for a long while, the tour these unlikely dreamers take you on is worth the trip. Samuel Clemens would have approved.
A little bit overrated, but overall liked it. Zack Gottsagen stole the show. Shia gave a good performance, but I just didn't believe his character L for most of the film. That may be a result of the script. Either way, Dakota Johnson disappoints. Overall found this to be a very earnest and well paced adventure with a classic indie absurdist crescendo thrown in. If you can still catch it near you, would recommend.
It is exactly like the title suggests, it is sweet and every one is going to like it.
The Peanut Butter Falcon
I don't use this word. I don't like to. But the film is "cute". Sweet. The writer and director Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz is frankly out on about with an ice cream truck gifting us free multi flavoured ice cream. The only job that they then have is to make sure we like this flavoured ice cream and also not are lactose intolerant. I am going to be honest. I don't like the flavour. Especially not the way it looks. This freestyle beach life or sea life is something that I don't get ever attracted to but then with such substantial if not stylish film is served, you cannot keep yourself away from the dish.
There is also the completeness in the script. As in, it follows the perfect script formula where every element, every scene, every piece of information leads to something. And it has every right to get, give, wherever, whatever it wants. It would then barely be disappointing for the viewers. As it never is. But there is this one other final update on this stereotypical script. And that climax is if not satisfying, is definitely mature and mind clearing to me.
The performance on the other hand also walks by smoothly just as the film does. There is nothing extraordinary, nothing special and nothing new to put a red ribbon on what it has to say. Still The Peanut Butter Falcon is the only one you would root for, bet on. And it is because the other contestants aren't good enough and he is a real people pleaser. He doesn't seek attention and that's why you would be attentive, intrigued towards him. There is also this bizarrely genius formula that it repetitively uses and it is that it goes to enormous extent to just push the characters for another step.
In their feature film debut, directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz didn’t make it easy on themselves. They cast a man with Down syndrome to portray a man with Down syndrome. They took on the baggage of Shia LeBoeuf. They cast Dakota Johnson in a role that didn’t involve handcuffs. And they hooked it all on a marginal story that owes much to Huckleberry Finn and moves at the laborious pace of a homemade raft on a slow-moving river. Happily, for the most part, they pull it off. Zac (Zack Gottsagen) is a Down syndrome man being warehoused by the state in a retirement home. With a little help from retiree Bruce Dern, Zac makes his escape, eventually meeting up with Tyler (Shia LeBoeuf), who is on the run for his own reasons. Eventually, they become friends and Tyler decides to help Zac achieve his life’s ambition – to train at the wrestling school of Salt Water Redneck, whose video Zac has watched incessantly. Discovered by Eleanor (Dakota Johnson), who is tasked with returning Zak to the retirement home, the trio eventually form an unlikely grouping determined to help Zak live out his dream by, wait for it, embarking on a homemade raft down a slow-moving river.
It’s the unpredictable elements that make this film worthwhile. Shia LeBoeuf decides to come across as a thoughtful, gruffly kind, even introspective character, not the self-absorbed maniac of his reputation. Since she’s not required to remove her clothes in every scene and utter immortal dialogue like “oh, oh… yes,” Dakota Johnson, as Zac’s retirement home caretaker Eleanor, turns out to be an understated, winning actress. The selection of Zack Gottsagen was the most risky, but ultimately most rewarding, choice made by the creative team.
Much has been made of the good-hearted spirit of this film, which is probably a euphemistic way of complimenting the creative team for casting Gottsagen in a leading role. And in fairness, Gottsagen and LeBoeuf do seem to have an offbeat, unconventional friendship that comes across as endearing and authentic.
This does not, however, relieve the writer/directors from delivering a film with a relevant story and actual character development, which they fail to do. While there’s some dialogue about how much freedom Zac should have, the film offers meager character development – who these characters are, what animates them – and very few thoughts about any larger issues. This makes the whole enterprise feel a bit insubstantial. To wrap up the story, the plot relies on a final scene that could charitably be called “magical realism,” but might more accurately be described as a story that simply ran out of steam.
Nilson and Schwartz have announced themselves as a creative team worth following. Hopefully, in their next outing, the team will acknowledge that Mark Twain relied on plot development and insightful observations about the world around him, not just a set of static characters, to make his stories so memorable.
Too many holes to take seriously. Shia is a great actor but this script was just too diseased to deal with. Just an awful movie. Whoever is on this site giving it a 10 shouldn't be allowed to review movies.