Together, the craggy Robert Redford and Nick Nolte would look eminently plausible on Mount Rushmore, carved between Washington and Lincoln. The problem, in enacting Bill Bryson’s 1998 account of hiking (half of) the Appalachian Trail, is that these two geezers don’t accomplish anything near historic.
For starters — to end at this dismal movie’s sodden finale — they quit mid-journey, unlike the triumph depicted in the recent adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, a much better film. (Reese Witherspoon would leave them in her dust.)
Redford (as Bryson) and Nolte (as Katz, his alcoholic Sancho Panza) teeter along credibly, making jokes about their age and grousing about the whippersnappers who race past. Though the adventure is meant as late-life stock-taking and there are a few moments of sunset philosophy, mainly these two guys complain.
The movie’s Bryson — however droll on the page, none of which I’ve read — is the last guy you’d want to meet on the trail. He’s a know-it-all. He’s aloof. He’s condescending to everyone he meets. He’s a pedant and — more damningly — not a very good friend to the sad screw-up Katz, who could use considerably more support.
Throughout the movie — terribly lit and badly directed by TV journeyman Ken Kwapis — Bryson rolls his eyes in bemused disapproval. The tacit message is I’m too good for this, which is essentially our feeling for poor Redford and Nolte.
They deserve better, these old-school movie stars from a fading generation; they minted their fame on real film stock, not TV. And they’ve earned their wrinkles the hard way — sun, booze, smoking, and Hollywood parties the likes of which George Clooney could only dream of.
We respect them more than the screenwriters do, unfortunately. (Their low comedic template appears to be “Grumpy Old Men” — lost in the woods!)
The supporting cast gets no better treatment. Briefly seen and entirely wasted are Emma Thompson, Mary Steenburgen, Kristen Schaal and Nick Offerman (the latter a salesman at REI, which receives a generous plug).
There is a market, I suppose, for this movie: people who hate to hike, who hate the outdoors, who think parks are a waste of taxpayer money and walking is a waste of time. Redford, we know, is a committed environmentalist — one reason why Bryson does sneak in a few eco-lessons. But this isn’t Redford’s movie. The only time it comes alive is in the old stories and scrapbook photos documenting Bryson’s and Katz’s wild 1960s travel adventures. Two handsome young guys chasing tail across Europe, raising hell and writing their own rules — that’s the movie we want to see, not this one.
“A Walk in the Woods”
Rating: R, for language and some sexual references
Showing: Everett Stadium, Marysville, Sundance Cinemas Seattle, Meridian, SIFF Cinema Uptown
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