A couple of years ago, \An Unfinished Life"" must have seemed like a sure-fire piece of Oscar bait, complete with an A-list cast of veterans (Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman), glamour puss celebrities (Jennifer Lopez, Camryn Manheim), and rising stars (Damien Lewis, Josh Lucas), and once-esteemed prestige director Lasse Hallstrom at the helm. It's as soft and sappy as anything Hallstrom has been involved with, containing symbolism and parallelism so overt that Gomer Pyle wouldn't need Cliff's Notes to understand it-and, best of all, it's a tidy, perfectly wholesome PG-13.
But lately it seems audiences have wised up and finally become immune to Hallstrom and Miramax's annual blitzkrieg of breathless advertising and campaigning. Judi Dench doesn't lure in the masses like she used to, as evidenced by the paltry returns for Hallstrom's own ""The Shipping News."" Once again, politics won't alter the public's general taste, and no matter how much Miramax struggles, the long-shelved ""An Unfinished Life"" will also die a quick death under the radar.
Like Hallstrom's other films (the most famous among them being ""What's Eating Gilbert Grape?"", ""The Cider House Rules"" and ""Chocolat""), ""An Unfinished Life"" has a seemingly depressing plotline that merely serves as a clothesline for a series of inevitable Kodak moments among its principle stars. Einar (Redford) and his best friend Mitch (Freeman) are two old coots who are basically waiting to die on their Wyoming ranch when Einar's daughter-in-law Jean (Lopez) trudges into town with daughter Griff (Becca Gardner) in tow.
Now, Einar harbors more than the usual resentment for Jean, whose negligence at the wheel led to his son's death years before, but she's penniless and on the run from abusive ex-boyfriend Gary (Lewis). In between bonding, this unlikely household must deal with Einar's bitterness and inability to get over his son's death, Gary's eventual skulking around the neighborhood, and the return of the grizzly bear that severely afflicted Mitch.
Despite Redford and Freeman's participation, ""An Unfinished Life"" is as paint-by-numbers as any of Hallstrom's films-you should expect plenty of graveside chats and initial abrasiveness dissolving into grandfatherly bonding as Redford takes baby steps towards reconciliation and forgiveness.
A suitably dramatic, defining moment is reserved for each character, whether it's Griff proving just how adept she is at jabbing a painkiller syringe into Freeman's bear-ravaged ass or Jean refusing to take shit from a group of drunken blowhards at the local diner she waitresses at. In fact, ""An Unfinished Life"" is such a typical Miramax-Hallstrom film that it feels like the result of a Mad Libs exercise between the film's writers and producers: A troubled young (noun) moves to a rural place in (setting) where he/she grapples with (tragic past event) while trying to connect with (person), who in turn helps him fend off (human antagonist) and (non-human antagonist).
""Band of Brothers"" star Lewis is strangely low-key as the stalker ex-boyfriend, and Lucas just kind of blandly occupies space like he usually does as the perfunctory love interest, but Lopez, Redford, and Freeman acquit themselves well enough.
It's useful to remember that it's Lopez's post-""J.Lo"" movies that suck, not always Lopez's performances (she is unusually fantastic in ""Out of Sight"")-and she once again gives a passable performance in a less-than-stellar film.
Freeman reiterates his wizened, gentle paternal presence well, and Redford gets to kick an ass or two in between grieving and growling at Lopez and her rather spotty driving record. ""An Unfinished Life"" sputters to life whenever Redford is busting heads, and if anything, this movie reminds us of what a pleasure it is to see the Sundance Kid back in action (even if he isn't a kid anymore).
An unconvincingly gruff film that will impress only people who've seen fewer than a dozen movies in their lifetime, ""An Unfinished Life"" is maudlin, mediocre middle-brow entertainment that Oxygen Network executives are probably booking already. But it's head and shoulders above a few other Miramax productions-any movie with Bart the Bear listed in its credits deserves some props-and hey, a fair share of grandmas and grandpas out there will enjoy the living hell out of it. And Judi Dench is nowhere in sight.
