Hard Miles – Review
Based on true events. Here we go again. Luckily, Matthew Modine is watchable in basically anything.
**NOTE: this post may be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
108 Minutes, Rated PG-13
Written by RJ Daniel Hanna and Christian Sander
Directed by RJ Daniel Hanna
Synopsis:
Hard Miles tells the uplifting true story of the bicycling team at Rite of Passage’s RidgeView Academy, a medium-security correctional school in Colorado. The film follows beleaguered coach Greg Townsend (Matthew Modine) as he rounds up an unlikely crew of incarcerated students for a seemingly impossible bike ride from Denver to the Grand Canyon.
I’ll make this as short and sweet as I can. Yes, Hard Miles is based on true people and events… ish. The idea of taking a rag-tag band of discarded kids and getting them to focus on something other than themselves in order to move past whatever traumas or mistakes have come their way is a common one. From Gridiron Gang (another “based on true events” with Dwayne Johnson) to Hardball (with the great Keanu Reeves), these stories can be powerful.
But as much as I like Matthew Modine, and as good as he generally is, I found Hard Miles to be a bland regurgitation of all those movie cliches: grumpy mentor, hard-headed kids, an athletic feat to bring them around…
I mean, the actual story here is that he takes four kids from his welding class at the boy’s home and in what is supposed to be a week, he turns them into cyclists capable of riding for 40-50 miles a day… or MORE!
I’m all for drama, but this interpretation of the truth is a bit much, even for me. The truth is that a man took multiple groups of boys on incredible bicycle journeys and many of them came out better on the other side. That’s real; that’s drama; that’s awesome.
But tis Hollywood, and while the performances are good, they feel truncated by the dictates of the script. The scenery is gorgeous, but we don’t get to appreciate it enough, as the boys are ostensibly doing; instead, we get close-up group shots of them talking about how much they hate the entire event, even when you can see their defenses softening.
If Hard Miles is supposed to be about how the wonder of nature — up to and including the Grand Canyon — is supposed to remind us of how small and insignificant we are, then focus on that, the nature, not the whining of the boys.
But if, i the future, I want to watch an inspirational movie set on bicycles, I’ll revert back to the classics: American Flyers or Breaking Away.
Hard Miles is in theaters now and stars Matthew Modine, Cynthia Kaye McWilliams, Leslie David Baker, Sean Astin, Jahking Guillory, Jackson Kelly, Damien Diaz, and Zachary T. Robbins.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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