SEPTEMBER 3, 2015
Paul Newman & Robert Redford reunite in “A Walk in the Woods.” That was a dream project of Redford’s and one that he kept alive until Newman’s health began to deteriorate in 2008. Various directors came and went on the project, including Barry Levinson and Richard Linklater. But Redford persevered and “A Walk in the Woods,” now directed by Ken Kwapis (“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”), has at last come to the screen.
I wish it hadn’t.
The film is based on a 1998 memoir by American travel writer Bill Bryson, who had been living in England for two decades when he and his British wife returned to the States and settled in New Hampshire. Not having written about travel experiences in the U.S., he decided to hike the Appalachian Trail, which extends 2000+ miles from Georgia to Maine.
When Bryson undertook his journey, he was in his mid-40s. In the film, however, Bryson is played by Redford, who is 79, and is joined on the hike by his crusty old friend Stephen Katz, portrayed now by Nick Nolte, who is 74. What may have been a mid-life crisis memoir has been turned into a “Grumpy Old Men”-style sitcom.
Once the men are on the trail, “A Walk in the Woods” becomes a walking-and-talking movie. If you’re going to go the walk/talk route, the talk had better be great, and it simply isn’t here. The script by Rick Kerb and Bill Holderman aspires to profundities, but the takeaway is Redford babbling on about what fungus killed the American chestnut tree and Nolte’s fond reminiscences about chasing tail. And the few jokes that are there are, in a word, corny.
Even more disappointing is the treatment of the few female characters in the film. The one female hiker they encounter (Kristen Schall) is shrill and superior, and Katz suggests that they murder her. Katz also has a romantic encounter with a heavy-set woman he meets in a laundromat, and then, as he’s being chased by the woman’s redneck husband, he has to remark about how fat she is. Even Bryson’s wife Catherine is a bit of a passive-aggressive scold, trying to discourage her husband’s journey by leaving articles about hikers who have been murdered or mauled by bears. Thank God she’s played by Emma Thompson who manages to overcome the material. Only just.
Clearly Redford is still capable of more than this. If you need any more proof that he’s still got it, rent 2013’s “All is Lost” where his muscular performance commands the screen. If there’s any silver lining, it’s that he has finally realized his dream project, and he can move on from there.
If I have to say something positive about the film, well… the landscapes are very pretty.
GRADE: D+
