ShockYa: There is no time quite like the 80s. There is a look and a style of dress that immediately evokes that particular decade, and it is fully present in David Gordon Green’s Prince Avalanche. Alvin (Paul Rudd) spends his days working as a traffic line painter in Texas following widespread wildfires, with his girlfriend’s brother Lance (Emile Hirsch) in tow. The two could not be more different, as Alvin revels in solitude and hard work, while Lance prefers to talk about girls and complain about the boring nature of his life. What ensues is a slow-paced journey towards a realization that these two might have more in common than they both think.
WGTC writes: A flawed but winning buddy pic, Prince Avalanche delivers strong performances and an enjoyable blend of humor and warmth.
Clickonline writes: "Personally, I enjoyed Green’s Pineapple Express but loathed Your Highness. This uber indie is a clear reaction against the rules and mores of the studio system but, for me, manages to also represent the worst elements of pseudo-intellectual waffly filmmaking. A bore."
TF:
Through no fault of its own, Icelandic flick Either Way didn’t make much of an impression when it came out in 2011.
But it made enough of an impact on David Gordon Green for him to mount this US remake, set in rural Texas with American talent but otherwise retaining the quiet, unassuming reticence of Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson’s modest original.
That’s despite the casting of Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch, both of whom are willing and able to go big and broad when the occasion demands. Here, though, they’re as muted as the mood of understated melancholy that hangs over this tale of two mismatched road workers charged with repainting lines and replacing reflectors along country thoroughfares in the aftermath of a devastating 1987 forest fire.
Green opts for a mournful yet humorous character study that plots as steady a course as the barely used highways upon which what passes for action takes place.
