As much as I respect Robert Redford as an actor, director and founder of the Sundance Institute, I just find him too hard to swallow as the father of an 11-year-old girl, especially the one played so precociously here by singing prodigy Jackie Evancho. This is one of several perceptible discrepancies that kept me from becoming fully engrossed in this fitfully suspenseful 2013 political thriller. At 76, he still looks great for his age and has a long legacy of starring in similarly themed movies like "All the President's Men" and "Three Days of the Condor", but our suspension of belief is put to the test when we are expected to believe that his character, a small-town lawyer named Jim Grant, turns out to be Nick Sloan, a former 1970's radical who would have been a fearless political agitator in his forties. While I believe it's never too late for anyone to start their lives over, there is an air of vanity in Redford's self-selection since he is also the director. Fortunately in that role, he shows his unerring professionalism and keeps the pacing tight despite the convolutions brought on by Lem Dobbs' screenplay.
The story begins when a middle-aged woman is suddenly arrested at a suburban gas station. Her real identity is Sharon Solarz, a former anti- Vietnam War radical who has been hiding in Canada under an alias for all these years. She makes one of her allowable calls to Grant, who becomes a person of interest for an intrepid newspaper reporter looking for his big break. Grant knows it's a matter of time before the FBI starts looking for him and goes on the lam, leaving his confused young daughter with his long-estranged brother. As Sloan, he is accused of participating with Solarz in a bank robbery that left a security guard dead. His former paramour Mimi Lurie is the only one who can prove his innocence, but she's in hiding as well and far less repentant about her radical activities. What follows is a series of encounters a bedraggled Sloan has with several former Weather Underground comrades. Each of them greets Sloan with different degrees of emotion depending on how they have carried on with their lives in the interim.
At the same time, Redford and Dobbs want to make a point of showing how history appears to be repeating itself with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and pointing to the role of current tabloid-style journalism in fanning the embers in an irresponsible way. The movie ends up simplifying its points by turning the story into a morality play where key characters have to decide when to take a stand and when to concede if there is something even bigger to consider than political convictions. Beyond Redford's craggy presence, there is a starry mix of old and new faces that make the cross-generational casting appear even more pronounced. Julie Christie as Lurie, Susan Sarandon as Solarz, and Richard Jenkins and a vocally challenged Nick Nolte as fellow ex- radicals all make welcome appearances in the story, though their roles feel somewhat truncated. Shia LaBoeuf plays the reporter with his usual veneer of smarminess, but Brit Marling and Anna Kendrick lend surprising sharpness in small roles. Terrence Howard, Chris Cooper and Stanley Tucci fill in other supporting roles with aplomb.
The story begins when a middle-aged woman is suddenly arrested at a suburban gas station. Her real identity is Sharon Solarz, a former anti- Vietnam War radical who has been hiding in Canada under an alias for all these years. She makes one of her allowable calls to Grant, who becomes a person of interest for an intrepid newspaper reporter looking for his big break. Grant knows it's a matter of time before the FBI starts looking for him and goes on the lam, leaving his confused young daughter with his long-estranged brother. As Sloan, he is accused of participating with Solarz in a bank robbery that left a security guard dead. His former paramour Mimi Lurie is the only one who can prove his innocence, but she's in hiding as well and far less repentant about her radical activities. What follows is a series of encounters a bedraggled Sloan has with several former Weather Underground comrades. Each of them greets Sloan with different degrees of emotion depending on how they have carried on with their lives in the interim.
At the same time, Redford and Dobbs want to make a point of showing how history appears to be repeating itself with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and pointing to the role of current tabloid-style journalism in fanning the embers in an irresponsible way. The movie ends up simplifying its points by turning the story into a morality play where key characters have to decide when to take a stand and when to concede if there is something even bigger to consider than political convictions. Beyond Redford's craggy presence, there is a starry mix of old and new faces that make the cross-generational casting appear even more pronounced. Julie Christie as Lurie, Susan Sarandon as Solarz, and Richard Jenkins and a vocally challenged Nick Nolte as fellow ex- radicals all make welcome appearances in the story, though their roles feel somewhat truncated. Shia LaBoeuf plays the reporter with his usual veneer of smarminess, but Brit Marling and Anna Kendrick lend surprising sharpness in small roles. Terrence Howard, Chris Cooper and Stanley Tucci fill in other supporting roles with aplomb.