Peneflix MOVIE REVIEWS BY PENEFLIX
Actor Matthew Modine is stratospherically stunning as a social worker manufacturing a world of possibilities, a world where the disenfranchised, downtrodden, overlooked can soar, bad boys whose behavior has cornered them in an irredeemable state, with little hope of resurrection. Coach Greg Townsend (Modine) doffs platitudinous presumptions and trains four juveniles to quash the 760 miles between Denver and the Grand Canyon on bicycles they have made. The boys: Woolbright (Jahking Guillory), Smink (Jackson Kelly), Atencio (Damien Diaz), Rice (Zach T. Robbins) are tough, hardened by their choices; cruelty is a preservative, a protective veneer, saving them from disappointment, rejection, deflation; without sensationalism Modine graces Townsend with inordinate dignity, in actuality, a man for all seasons, his familial history mirroring the boys; coddling is anathema, his blazoned drive binds the pack of five, cycling as one, reminiscent of “Boys in the Boat” they fuse, inspire; chilly awareness, of just maybe, the possibility of success might be feasible, attainable, opening vistas of unimaginable scope.
Trailed by a safety van, driven with realistic, daunting stamina by Haddie (electrifying Cynthia Kaye McWilliams); wisdom is her forte and she calls, with profound authorization, the shots.
Director/writer, R.J. Daniel Hanna, Modine, a fine cast and crew, with impeccable insight shed legitimate lionization on the cycling team of medium-security Rite of Passage’s Ridge View Academy, in Colorado. Greg Townsend is a man who saves, motivates lives and heroically exalts in the process.
FOUR STARS!!!!
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