the road to galena movie review

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The road to galena, common sense media reviewers.

Meandering drama about adulthood has language, suicide.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Maintaining compassion and integrity during life's

Cole has a dream to run a farm, but he must endure

Two people of color in main cast: Black actor Jenn

Scene with fighting. A character threatens violenc

Language includes "s--t," "ass," "f--k you," "bumf

Scene with a Massey Ferguson tractor.

Adults drink alcohol.

Parents need to know that The Road to Galena is a drama about a man who wants to fulfill his life's dream of owning a farm but is forced to follow his dad's hopes and become a lawyer. Expect strong language (including "s--t," "f--k," "oh my God," and more), a character dying by suicide (off-screen), and some…

Positive Messages

Maintaining compassion and integrity during life's bumps in the road can be hard to do, but it says a lot about a person's character.

Positive Role Models

Cole has a dream to run a farm, but he must endure an adulthood that's decided for him. Still, he maintains his compassion for his friend, who ends up marrying his former girlfriend, and his father, who's tough on him because of his own deferred dreams. Cole maintains his integrity by keeping his heart open to his dream of owning and running a successful farm.

Diverse Representations

Two people of color in main cast: Black actor Jennifer Holliday plays Florrie, who mostly acts as observer of Cole's life; her clichéd main function is to advise Cole on how to live his life. Thai American Alisa Allapach plays Ben's wife, Sarah, a semi-supportive partner. While parts of Sarah's personality are antagonistic, she's more complex than other female characters in the cast. Elle is defined by the men in her life, going from Ben, her high school sweetheart, to marrying his best friend, Jack. We never see how she's defined as an individual, nor does her character seem interested in defining herself outside of her relationships. A Latino supporting character has a small speaking part.

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Violence & Scariness

Scene with fighting. A character threatens violence. A character dies by suicide off-screen.

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Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Language includes "s--t," "ass," "f--k you," "bumf--k," "hell," "bulls--t," "bastards." Exclamatory use of "oh my God," "Jesus Christ," "for Christ's sake." Words that could be seen as potentially ableist ("stupid," "crazy").

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Road to Galena is a drama about a man who wants to fulfill his life's dream of owning a farm but is forced to follow his dad's hopes and become a lawyer. Expect strong language (including "s--t," "f--k," "oh my God," and more), a character dying by suicide (off-screen), and some drinking and fighting. The film isn't notably diverse, and female characterizations are limited, lacking complexity and individuality, but characters do demonstrate compassion and integrity. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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What's the Story?

THE ROAD TO GALENA is a drama about Cole ( Ben Winchell ), who grows up in the farm country of Maryland and wants to be a farmer himself. But his father (Jay O. Sanders) doesn't agree and wants Cole to get a high-powered job so that he can provide for himself. As life goes on and leads Cole further away from his dream, he starts to lose himself -- until tragedies make him realize that his life is all about the choices that make him happy.

Is It Any Good?

This drama has a good story at its core, but it gets to the point too late. It has a nearly two-hour runtime, and, within those two hours, plot points go by very slowly. Perhaps if it had been a TV series like Parenthood or This Is Us , the pacing would make more sense, since the moments in Cole's life are set up similar to TV episodic beats.

The Road to Galena might also have been more enjoyable had it been more tightly written. That said, the film does have a positive message about following your heart, regardless of what friends and family who don't understand your vision might have to say. It just would have been nicer if the story was told in an hour and 30 minutes or less, instead of nearly two hours.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Cole's dreams. What did he want out of life? Why did his father disagree?

How is mental health portrayed in The Road to Galena ? How does it compare to the way other films have addressed the topic?

How does Cole show integrity and compassion ?

Talk about suicide and the way it's addressed in this film. When is it important to talk about mental health, especially if you're worried about a friend or family member? What resources are available to help both kids and adults ?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 8, 2022
• On DVD or streaming : July 8, 2022
• Cast : Ben Winchell , Will Brittain , Aimee Teegarden , Jennifer Holliday
• Director : Joe Hall
• Inclusion Information : Female actors, Black actors
• Studio : Vertical Entertainment
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : Friendship
• Run time : 110 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language
• Last updated : December 10, 2023

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Screen Rant

The road to galena review: familiar drama is too safe & unmemorable.

Fully engaging with the film, as one might be forced to do in a theatrical setting, will prove unrewarding — both intellectually and emotionally.

Movies like  The Road to Galena   present a challenge to film critics. The age of Rotten Tomatoes has ossified the notion that reviews are either positive or negative, but there are many films that live in a space between enthusiastic endorsement and scalding dismissal, where the customary adjectives hardly seem appropriate. They are an emotional doldrums of sorts, eliciting no reaction, whether for or against, that is strong enough to encourage more than a passing conversation. How, then, is one supposed to generate legible, even diverting prose about their viewing experience? Without simplifying the exercise by allowing the assessment communicated here to swing artificially in either direction, the best option seems to accept  The Road to Galena  as a safe story safely told, and highlight a few ways the movie could've made more of what it had to work with.

From writer-director Joe Hall,  The Road to Galena  covers decades in the life of Cole Baird (Ben Winchell), who finds himself on a lifepath he never wanted without knowing how to take himself off it. Though he dreams of owning a farm in his hometown of Galena, Maryland, marrying his high school sweetheart Elle (Aimee Teegarden) and working alongside his childhood best friend Jack (Will Brittain), his father John (Jay O. Sanders) wants him to dream bigger. A brief prelude that reveals him as a lawyer later in life, living in Washington D.C. and married to a different woman (Alisa Allapach), promises many failed attempts to return to that dream. Is he destined to live a life of nominal success that will never truly satisfy him? Or can he find his way back to Galena before it's too late?

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Those questions aren't the most interesting to ask about this story. Even ignoring the fact that most readers can probably envision the ending, telling the audience in the opening minutes that Cole goes at least 20 years down that life path drains the tension from any of his plans to leave it.  The Road to Galena  could instead have asked why someone would spend so long building a life they don't want when the titular way home is always so clear. But the reasons for this are more presented than explored: Social pressure, first from his father, then from his career-driven wife. But is that really all it takes? As much as he dreams of farming, Cole seems to be a lawyer extraordinaire, succeeding with minimal sign of strain — could he secretly like the feeling of being so good at something? There are some very overt story parallels back in Galena involving his friend Jack that might make Cole question whether his dream life is so dreamy after all. The fact that he never considers this line of thinking, when it will undoubtedly be all some viewers think about, is, frankly, absurd.

This lack of thematic and narrative ambition translates to the characters, most of whom are fairly underwritten. The most important thing about each of them is their position in Cole's life, to the extent that, when they act against his expectations of them, it's more a sign of his misunderstanding than their having any interior life of their own. This is a shame, because Cole, in spite of his so aggressively "main character"-ing his way through life, is difficult to care much about. A scene in which Jack approaches John, who is the town's banker, for a loan to buy property ends up one of the movie's most interesting, just because they get to have a real interaction without the protagonist dictating their behavior.

And yet, even with  The Road to Galena  following its most predictable path, it's not wholly objectionable. There's a certain comfort in being carried through this narrative, with each turn coming exactly where the audience expects it to that's akin to watching an episode of a subpar sitcom. Fully engaging with the film, as one might be forced to do in a theatrical setting, will prove unrewarding — both intellectually and emotionally. But it's the kind of movie that's perfect for streaming while doing chores, or to turn on after a long day of work with the intention of putting one's brain on standby. In those settings, where safe storytelling is sometimes all that's required, people could do a whole lot worse than this film.

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The Road to Galena  releases both in theaters and on digital Friday, July 8. The movie is 110 minutes long and is rated R for language.

The Road to Galena (2022)

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The Road to Galena

By Jordan Bond | January 28, 2024

Everyone experiences a stage in their life where they second guess a decision. Sometimes that decision is as little as debating what entree you should have ordered at a restaurant. Other times, the decision in question is much larger. Such is the case in The Road to Galena by writer/director Joe Hall, where a small-town man turned big-time lawyer struggles to reconcile his career decision with a dream he has held since adolescence.  

Cole Baird (Ben Winchell) and his best friend Jack Miller (Will Britain) are typical rural American truck-driving, girl-chasing high school boys. Having grown up in a small town called Galena, they are exposed to farm life, and each has dreams of one day owning and operating a farm of their own. Cole, however, faces opposition to his agricultural dream by way of his father, John (Jay O. Sanders), who would much rather see his son pursue a career path that has more options for traditional success and financial stability.

Cole and his girlfriend Elle (Aimee Teegarden) dream about a future together in Galena. A dream that is put on hold when Cole decides to go off to college in hopes of returning someday with a college degree to continue life with Elle. He ends up pursuing a law degree at Georgetown University and life starts to shift direction.  

“…a small-town man turned big-time lawyer struggles to reconcile his career decision with a dream he has held since adolescence…”  

Time, of course, waits for no man, and while Cole is pursuing his law degree, everyone’s lives move forward. Cole’s relationship with Elle crumbles, and he meets a new girl, Sarah (Alisa Allapach), in law school. His friendship with Jack is strained as the distance and time apart stack up. Cole’s family endures their own hardships, and he regrets not being present in Galena to support them. As time flies by, Cole sees a successful law career flourish while the dream of running a farm in Galena slowly drifts away. Will Cole maintain the status quo, or will he return home to revive a childhood dream?  

The Road to Galena has seen some festival recognition, and rightfully so. The film is well-made, with beautiful cinematography, very fine acting, and great direction. The musical score fits the movie and is well-composed, albeit a bit cheesy and melodramatic. The plot is stereotypical, with characters that behave predictably given their circumstances. The movie’s theme of believing in a dream and never giving up hope is timeless. Admirably, writer Joe Hall also manages to tie in thematic elements of the cost of greed and success in the modern world.  

The Road to Galena is comparable to something you might see from Hallmark or a small studio that produces inspirational films. About halfway through, however, some heavy plot moments darken the otherwise “feel-good/family-friendly” tone of the movie.  

The catch here is that I think the film struggles with having an identity crisis. The movie carries an “R” rating. The only aspect of the movie that justifies such a harsh rating is the use of profanity. Profanity only occurs periodically and, quite frankly, does nothing to add intensity to the dialogue. For a movie that tonally and thematically feels like an inspirational film, the R rating prevents it from achieving that. The Road to Galena is also not so dark or complex that it aspires to be more than a family-friendly type of affair. The movie, as it stands, is awkwardly stuck in the middle.  

Give The Road to Galena a watch if you’re looking for a lighter film that isn’t afraid to dabble with some heavier moments.  

The Road to Galena (2022)

Directed and Written: Joe Hall

Starring: Ben Winchell, Will Britain, Aimee Teegarden, Jill Henessey, etc.

Movie score: 7/10

"…the cost of greed and success in the modern world..."

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The Road to Galena

Where to Watch

Ben Winchell (Cole Baird) Will Brittain (Jack Miller) Aimee Teegarden (Elle Shepard) Alisa Allapach (Sarah Meyers) Jay O. Sanders (John Baird) Jill Hennessy (Teresa Baird) Margaret Colin (Margaret Kenney) Jennifer Holliday (Florrie) Tracy Fisher (Brian Carlin) Audrey Wasilewski (Shelby)

Cole Baird has everything - a beautiful wife, successful career, large home, country club membership and expensive toys. Behind the facade, however, is a man trapped by his surroundings and falling ever behind in the pursuit of his life's dream. Not strong enough to confront his father's expectations, he left his true love, his best friend and his vision of life in small town America, and set off on a legal career - intent to, one day, return. Now the rising star in Washington social circles, and the youngest Managing Partner in the history of a powerhouse DC law firm, he is given the choice - continue the path of success in a life to which he never aspired, or return to the community that raised him. The Road to Galena is a touching story of one man's quiet desperation giving way to fulfillment; a story that motivates us to travel our own roads toward a more meaningful life.

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In The Road To Galena , farmers plant a vast crop of clichés

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The road to galena.

2022 Directed by Joe Hall

Sometimes you have to take the long way home.

Cole Baird has everything—a beautiful wife, successful career, large home, country club membership and expensive toys. Behind the facade, however, is a man trapped by his surroundings and falling ever behind in the pursuit of his life's dream. Not strong enough to confront his father's expectations, he left his true love, his best friend and his vision of life in small town America, and set off on a legal career—intent to, one day, return. Now the rising star in Washington social circles, and the youngest Managing Partner in the history of a powerhouse DC law firm, he is given the choice—continue the path of success in a life to which he never aspired, or return to the community that raised him.

Ben Winchell Will Brittain Aimee Teegarden Alisa Allapach Jay O. Sanders Jill Hennessy Margaret Colin Jennifer Holliday Audrey Wasilewski Tracy Fisher

Director Director

Producers producers.

Woody Andrews Eric Bannat

Writer Writer

Casting casting.

Sig De Miguel Stephen Vincent

Editor Editor

Christopher Cibelli

Cinematography Cinematography

Clark Vandergrift

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Robert Cinquegrana Erich Schwartz

Camera Operator Camera Operator

Chris Benson

Production Design Production Design

Erik Boring

Composer Composer

Paco Periago

Makeup Makeup

Gina W. Bateman

AVA Independent

Alternative Title

Um Lugar para Voltar

Releases by Date

Theatrical limited, 08 jul 2022, releases by country.

• Theatrical limited R

110 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Taylor Leverage ★½ 1

Okay, so sit down for storytime: this movie was filmed near my hometown and my parents are in a few background shots as extras; it's a bit surreal seeing places you knew as a kid used as the setting for a movie. Anyway, a couple of times that they were on set they took my dog, a then-12-year-old Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Shadow that loved everybody and would sell you out for the skin off a piece of bologna. There was no need to bring her there, nobody had asked for a dog to be brought in for a shot or anything. But the production team included her as part of a few takes anyway, walking down a town sidewalk…

Review by carly

I watched this because my brother had to review it okay it’s a hallmark movie for farmers

Review by Tolberto837 ★★★ 1

As someone credited in this film, it’s hard to find a cause to hate it, but I see a ton of the story flaws as many of the crew did. A ton of the interesting interactions of the story are cut very short in pursuit of sub 2 hours, but in reality the movie was never pressing any of the major boundaries that I thought it could’ve. Social anxiety and desire to please others is something that I relate so much with and that could’ve been a decent motivator for Cole but it never gets established. A few of the other characters just act as one dimensional avenues to block or support Cole. In the end, I can’t judge off…

Review by Charlotte ★

what a horrible movie to spend my birthday with, but i knew that going in LOL

Review by nicksmaldone ★★★★★

Finally, a REAL family drama!

Review by EmeraldEamon ½ 3

Wasn't even filmed in Galena

Also, whatever love dynamic they had was more confusing than whatever was going on in that Miraculous ladybug show

Review by Jacycase ★★★★★

Farm sadness is the saddest off all the sadness. 

I think he should have listened to Elliot smith and he might have felt better 

Nice job Christian’s dad

Review by judcoffey ½

My mom said that she was sorry she picked this out. I told her I wasn’t even mad at her. I was mad at the people that created this.

Review by Jeff Bloggess

What I'd imagine watching nearly two hours of stock footage with a plot would feel like.

Review by Scott Audetat ★★

Story of three friends growing up our on the farms.

Winchell is the man that just wants to be a man of the land, but his parents want more, and he is gifted a full ride at a law school. He also has Teegarden on his arm.

Brittain is the third friend, who will be a farmer as he takes it over from his father.

So, while away at school, Brittain steals Teegarden away and they go on to run the farm alone, and it just keeps getting worse and worse for them.

Winchell meets a new girl, Allapach, and he goes on to plenty of success.

But instead of well-paying job and an amazing wife, Winchell just wants to be a farmer.

This movie just kept losing me over and over. I never got why this guy wanted to have the rougher life so bad. It annoyed me. I just couldn't relate.

Review by shandistefano ★½

This is not very good but I love that it shows Kent County and Chestertown because I spent about 1/2 my life there

Review by Micah Weber ★

If they cut all the B-Roll between every scene this movie could be significantly shorter. Also like the dude cheats on his wife with his former ex who was his best friends wife and it’s supposed to be romantic?

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MOVIE REVIEW

‘THE ROAD TO GALENA’

Rated R. On VOD.

“The Road to Galena” is the kind of film no one makes anymore. But in an age of reboots, sequels, prequels, remakes, superhero movies and indie coming-of-age films, it’s a journey you might want to take. An original film written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Joe Hall, “The Road to Galena” tells the story of Cole Baird (Ben Winchell, “Max Steel”), a young man from the town of Galena, Maryland, on the Upper Eastern Shore. Farming is a tradition in the Baird family, and Cole has a passion for it. But his unhappy banker father John Baird (Jay O. Sanders) and his loving, but sickly mother Teresa (Jill Hennessy) want Cole, who excels at school, to “expand his horizons.”

They want him to attend an out-of-town college and then Georgetown Law School, where he gets a full scholarship. Cole and his devoted girlfriend Elle Shepard (Aimee Teegarden, “Friday Night Lights”) were once inseparable. But they drift apart. The same was true for Cole and his best friend Jack Miller (Will Britain). Cole still helps Jack take care of the struggling Miller family farm. After Cole goes off to college, Jack and Elle find themselves spending a lot of time together. During school breaks, Cole thrives working in the Miller fields and riding the big Massey Ferguson tractors. At Georgetown, Cole meets Sarah Meyers (Alisa Allapach), a strongly driven young woman, who aspires to break into Washington, D.C., society as a high-powered attorney for a powerful law firm.

Everyone appears to be doing well. But the truth is the Miller farm is failing, and Jack is driving it into the ground with his misguided choices, and Cole is terribly unhappy as an attorney, however successful. He dreams of getting back to working the earth in his muddy boots.

“Time passes, and suddenly you realize, this is it,” as John Baird tells Cole, regarding the way that life makes choices for us. “The Road to Galena” is about how we can make our own choices. People marry the wrong partners. Some try to make it work anyway. People take jobs that leave them feeling unfulfilled and unhappy. Some are struck down by illness. The film has the heft of lives being lived. The multiple family narratives yield an abundance of character and story.

Hall has assembled a talented cast to handle the acting chores. Winchell, who could audition for the role of Superman, is an unfulfilled American hero you can root for. He yearns to be part of a vanishing breed, the owner of a small, successful family farm at a time when such farms fail regularly and are being taken over by giant corporate farming companies. Britain brings genuine fire to the role of the frustrated, underachieving Jack, who is a loving husband and father. Teegarden is also appealing as the young woman torn between two friends. In the role of the slightly villainous schemer, Allapach finds the humanity in Sarah that makes her more than a stereotype. Sanders and Hennessy bring complexity to Cole’s notably unhappy parents. Each character has their story, and “The Road to Galena” slowly builds into something larger than its modest budget would suggest. In the role of a local diner owner and dispenser of free-of-charge life lessons, Jennifer Holiday also gives a generic role a personal stamp. This “Road” may be modest. But its truths make it worth taking.

“The Road to Galena” contains profanity.

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The Road to Galena — Joe Hall

The road to galena delivers little more than reductive bumpkin caricatures and well-trod narrative arcs..

The Road to Galena , the feature debut from writer-director Joe Hall, plays a bit like the novice filmmaker desperately wanting to cross Tennessee Williams with a standard-issue Hallmark flick. Why anyone would even want to attempt such a thing isn’t exactly clear, and the end result is roughly as successful as that oddball description suggests. Indeed, in both look and tenor, the film feels like a middling entry in the God’s Not Dead series, except sans any religious themes and with the occasional F-bomb thrown in to prove adultness. There’s something both strangely endearing and outright offensive in the film’s blatant pandering to its target audience, those struggling, working-class, salt-of-the-earth folks who harbor a deep distrust of anyone in a suit or those who refuse to listen to country music. That’s not to speak ill of those individuals reflected in The Road to Galena , but only the way they have been turned into cruel caricatures by a filmmaker who seems to mistake stereotypes for fact.

Max Steel star Ben Winchell — imagine if that was your CV — stars as Cole Baird, a good ol’ boy growing up in the small farming community of Galena, Maryland. Cole’s dream is to buy some land and start a family with his girlfriend Elle (Aimee Teegarden) upon graduating high school, but his blowhard pop, local bank manager John (Jay O. Sanders), thinks such a life is pathetic and worthless, so he sends Cole away to college, where he ultimately gets into Georgetown Law School. Meanwhile, Elle hooks up with Cole’s best pal, Jack (Will Brittain), who has stayed in Galena and taken over the family farm, causing all sorts of turmoil in the friend group, because what this two-hour film needed was some relationship drama. Cut ahead a few years, and Elle and Jack are married with two kids, while Cole is a big-city lawyer in a fancy Washington D.C. law firm, shacking up with the social status-obsessed Sarah (Alisa Allapach). Jack can’t catch a break, what with the bank breathing down his neck, while Cole is a millionaire, living in the lap of luxury. But the question remains: is Cole happy? At one point, Jack confronts Cole, point blank asking him, “Who are you, man,” a query that so rattles our churlish protagonist that it makes one wonder if he was ever able to catch Moonlight on Netflix over the past few years.

The Road to Galena paints itself as an ode to those individuals still clinging to the farmlands of America, while duplicitous bankers and faceless corporations work overtime to take that which never belonged to them, all in the name of a quick buck. While such stories are all too common and tragic in the real world, they are certainly done no favors by narratives such as this, filled with characters whose traits and motivations are insultingly easy to categorize: rich and successful equals bad, poor and humble equals good. Jack’s initially flawed financial strategizing is what ultimately causes his family’s undoing, but it’s Cole’s father who is forced to take the blame, because he approved the loan. For good measure, the man also reveals himself to be a monster who resents his son’s existence, because bankers , am I right? Cole is a jerk because he pursues a job at which he is apparently a borderline genius, becoming a partner in less than a decade, but this makes it difficult for him to come down and help his friend on the weekends. Also, if you have a lot of money, you’re probably going to become an alcoholic. That it takes Cole literally 20 years — cue the terrible middle-aged prosthetics — to realize that you can be a lawyer and still own a small piece of farmland makes one wonder how he ever even managed to graduate high school, let alone law school, while Jack is ultimately turned into a bland martyr.

Hall goes out of his way to visually express the contrast between city and country life, imagery of wet and muddy earth juxtaposed with steel skyscrapers and concrete sidewalks. The film certainly looks like a Ford truck commercial, all golden-hued, sweeping aerial shots of gorgeous farmland, while the city is rendered cold and blue. If one were to take a shot every time a God’s-eye establishing shot of Galena was used, alcohol poisoning would hit by the 20-minute mark. The movie also boasts a strange habit of including close-ups of random items that the viewer naturally assumes will pay off later, but Hall is above your fancy foreshadowing, thank you very much. Ultimately, no one is done any favors by The Road to Galena , least of all its audience members; if only Hall had learned that being this cruelly condescending is a rich man’s game.

Published as part of Before We Vanish — July 2022 .

• Before We Vanish
• by Steven Warner

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Movie Review: A rich city lawyer longs for his farm country past — “The Road to Galena”

The late mid-80s were the heyday of the “trouble on the farm” drama, movies that warned us of the perils of Big Ag and small town bank takeovers, just before the Monsanto menace became obvious, just after farmers voted themselves into Reaganism oblivion. ‘

Joe Hall’s debut feature “The Road to Galena” is a less political and half-heartedly nostalgic “trouble” story set in the end game era of the Family Farm. It’s about a banker’s son ( Ben Winchell of TV’s “Finding Carter” ) who waxes lyrical about the work, the land and the people, and has a whiff of “Green Acres” about it in that regard. But “Galena’s” in step with the latest “back to the land” vibe, even if sustainable, small-farm agriculture is one of the many promising angles it all but ignores.

Cole Baird grew up on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, farm country on the banks of the bountiful (and never glimpsed) Chesapeake Bay. Back in the late ’90s he was a star student, University of Maryland bound. But every time he makes noise about changing majors, or at least adding “ag” to his classload, his dad ( Jay O. Sanders ) redirects him towards “giving yourself options.” Banker dad knows the good times never last. He’s seen as many farm busts as booms.

Cole may have his best girl Elle (“Friday Night Lights” alumna Aimee Teagarden ) and his farm-family best friend Jack ( Will Brittain of “The Forever Purge”), a guy who can always count on Cole to pitch in to keep his dad’s place running.

But as we’ve seen Cole in a D.C. law firm meeting in the film’s opening scene, and much of this story is told in flashback, we know college is going to change things. Ben’s rowing crew, dealing with lectures from his dad about focusing on his studies, headed to Georgetown Law at his father’s behest. His time “back home” is limited. At some point, Elle and Jack’s inherited farm, and its problems, take back seats to law school, passing the bar, making partner and all that entails.

Elle gets to make the “you’re never here ” speech. Jack takes up with Cole’s girl, Cole’s mom gets cancer, etc.

But that work-the-land dream never goes away.

There’s much-plowed dramatic ground for Hall to dig into here, but he waters-down the drama to Hallmark Channel/Positiv TV blandness, which overwhelms the movie. Every character feels generic, every response to every situation more preordained by the simple goals of the script than organically developed.

The homey African American diner owner ( Jennifer Holliday ) gets one chance and once chance only to show us she’s the town sage — gently shaking Cole out of his sentimental attachment to “a way of life that’s disappearing.”

Cole finds out Jack is spending time with Elle, abruptly punches him, and all is instantly forgiven. Not much of a tussle.

The movie’s frightfully patriarchal, with Elle the practical woman her eventual husband Jack keeps out of the loop about their collapsing finances, and Alsia Allapac h playing the rich lawschool girlfriend-turned-wife who schools Cole on the “ethics” of taking the monied, morally bankrupt clients, making partner and living “the good life” in defiance of Cole’s cliched rural values.

Almost everything introduced into this leisurely two hour movie feels undigested, under-developed. There’s an earnestness to all of this that feels more accepted than justified. And with much of the drama watered-down the big dramatic moments aren’t nearly as big as they need to be.

The acting is a bit bland, too, with only a couple of players making their characters pop. The setting is interesting and the stakes are high enough. But it’s hard to fall into a movie where big, risk-taking commitment is missing, in front of and behind the camera.

Rating: R, profanity (third act f-bombs)

Cast: Ben Winchell, Aimee Teagarden, Will Brittain, Alisa Allapach, Jill Hennessy and Jay O. Sanders.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Joe Hall. A Vertical release.

Running time: 1:53

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• Thu. Apr 25th, 2024

The Road to Galena Movie Review

By Harvey Karten

THE ROAD TO GALENA

Vertical Entertainment Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net, linked from Rotten Tomatoes by Harvey Karten Director: Joe Hall Screenwriter: Joe Hall Cast: Ben Winchell, Will Brittain, Aimee Teegarden, Alisa Allapach, Jayh O. Sanders, Jennifer Holliday, Jill Hennessy, Margaret Colin Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 6/16/22 Opens: July 8, 2022

In 1919, American soldiers stationed in Europe were returning from the war, many of them having seen Europe for the first time in their lives. Walter Donaldson, Joe Young and Sam M. Lewis cashed in on this idea with the song that goes “How ya gonna keep ‘em/ Down on the farm/ After they’ve seen Paree.” After one hundred three years, writer-director Joe Hall answers the question. In the “Road to Galena,” Hall, in his debut full-length movie, might reply that if farm life is in your blood, you can be offered the Taj Mahal, the jewels of Topkapi, and maybe Greenland provided that you live where those treasures are found, and you will still return to the farm. He doesn’t mention Paris or any of the other inducements, but finds a guy who gets a job allowing him to drive a BMW, have a country club membership, receive invitations to gala Washington parties, and realizes to his dismay that life is passing him by. Huh?

Ben Winchell in the lead role as Cole Baird makes us almost believe that he would chuck the toys and every perk that comes with corporate law if he could be, aw shucks, just a country lawyer with a farm. It’s not that he is encouraged to follow his downscale dreams. His dad John (Jay O. Sanders), his mom Teresa (Jill Hennessey), his wife Sarah (Alisa Allapach), his boss Margaret (Margaret Colin), his best friend Jack (Will Brittain), all mess with Cole’s mind, but darn it if Cole doesn’t wrestle with his conscience and come up with the right thing to do. Only his down-home former gal Elle (Aimee Teegarden) regrets that her guy’s going off to college and then to law school. She would have preferred that Cole remain doing what heaven put him on this earth to do.

If this looks like a soap, it is; in fact it could easily find a place on TV daytime, advertised, of course, by the card you buy when you care enough to send the very best. Still, it’s entertaining enough, its people filled with humanity. There’s the dad who tells him that the desire to be a farmer is a faux romantic notion. Independent farmers are not doing well especially with big agriculture taking over their lands after undercutting local prices and putting them out of business. The father is himself a man that dreamed of being a Wall Street banker and has to settle for a job in the small town of Galena, Maryland, in that state’s Eastern shore.

Ben Winchell turns in a good performance, making us almost believe that he considers giving up a chance at a law partnership to opt for the simpler things in life. Though Henry David Thoreau held that “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave will the song still in them,” he may not have thought of men who make upwards of a million dollars a year in today’s money. But writer-director Joe Hall could easily love being a partner for the Hallmark card people.

113 minutes. © 2022 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Onli

Story – C+ Acting – B Technical –B Overall – B-

Harvey Karten is the founder of the The New York Film Critics Online (NYFCO) an organization composed of Internet film critics based in New York City. The group meets once a year, in December, for voting on its annual NYFCO Awards.

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The Road to Galena: Trailer 1

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THE ROAD TO GALENA REVIEW

With summer approaching fast, producers and directors have been hard at work getting summer-themed films ready for the world to see.

The story starts in 1998 in Galena, Maryland. Teenager Cole Baird (Ben Winchell) has a beautiful girlfriend named Elle (Aimee Teegarden), and a best friend named Jack (Will Brittain) to help guide him through life. The trio happily spend their days on Maryland’s Eastern shore celebrating friendship, love, and small-town adventure.

Back at his home with his parents, the audience sees that Cole has a strong relationship with his mother. However, his relationship with his father (Jay O. Sanders) revolves around the life he wants for Cole. While Cole dreams of being a full-time farmer, his father wishes for his son to become a lawyer.

As the teen years leave the trio, Cole attends The University of Maryland. Elle and Jack stay behind. Viewers see the distance between the couple start to put a strain on their relationship. With Cole away at school, Elle and Jack’s friendship ends up blossoming into romance.

As time passes, Cole continues his education while Jack and Elle get engaged. Though hurt, Cole agrees to be Jack’s best man at his wedding.

On a visit back home, Cole’s mother tells him that she was diagnosed with lung cancer over a year ago. Though upset that his parents waited over a year to tell him, she assures Cole that she is being taken care of.

On his first day of class at Georgetown Law, Cole meets a classmate named Sarah, who will end up being his future wife.

After he marries Sarah, the life Cole’s father dreamt for his son quickly falls into place. The couple becomes proud owners of a stunning home in Washington DC, and Cole works for a distinguished law firm.

Sadly, Sarah contacts her husband at work to inform him that his mother passed away.

Back in Galena, Cole’s work life is falling apart. Even though he and Elle have welcomed two daughters, his farm is not where it needs to be to support himself or his family. Although Cole has managed to be able to help his old friend, when possible, his inability to be there when Jack needs him causes the strain between them to return.

With the stress of trying to strengthen his farm while providing for his family, Jack reaches his breaking point. The film takes a dark turn when Jack tragically takes his own life.

As time goes on after Jack’s death, Elle offers to sell Cole their farm, much to Sarah’s dismay. Realizing they want different things in life and from each other, Cole and Sarah decide to separate.

Time goes on and Cole purchases the farm while also continuing to practice law. After Elle lets him know her plans to possibly stick around Galena with her daughters, viewers are left confident that Cole and Elle will rekindle their romantic relationship.

Coming to the U.S. on July 8th, director Joe Hall introduces viewers to Cole Baird while following him on his journey of personal fulfillment over what’s expected of him.

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About Amanda Glover

Amanda Glover is a writer from Atlanta, Georgia. She graduated cum laude from Savannah College of Art & Design in November 2020. Her goal is to encourage aspiring writers to tell their stories and express themselves through their words. Besides writing, some of her hobbies include painting, reading, and photography.

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‘Hard Miles’ Review: Matthew Modine Stars in a Scenic Cycle Through the West

The long winding road to redemption beckons four juvenile offenders and their adult minders in R.J. Daniel Hanna’s satisfying, fact-inspired drama.

By Dennis Harvey

Dennis Harvey

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A grueling two-pedal route to the Grand Canyon just might provide the course-correction male juvenile offenders need in “ Hard Miles .” With Matthew Modine as their teacher-coach, this fact-inspired tale covers familiar redemptive sports drama terrain. But it’s traveled with affectingly understated assurance by director R.J. Daniel Hanna (“Miss Virginia”) and a strong cast, making for a satisfying scenic ride that picked up several festival audience awards last year.

Popular on Variety

Given scant prior training, this quarrelsome “team” is off to a rough start, encountering plenty of personality-conflict speed bumps ahead. But “Hard Miles” also conveys the exhilaration of the open road, steep physical challenges conquered, and collective bonding that results. Though we learn little about their individual histories, we can feel how these characters blossom in the rare glow of being allowed to actually achieve something themselves. This ride proves they’re not simply loser delinquents, as they’ve always been told. 

The pacing slackens somewhat around the two-thirds point, then rallies for separate climaxes sentimental (when Greg finally visits his father’s deathbed) and rousing (as the Grand Canyon is reached), both handled with moving restraint rather than heavy-handed melodrama or inspirational uplift. While there’s an occasional corny line here, Hanna and Sander wisely keep dialogue on the humorous and/or argumentative side — after all, these are figures who’ve learned the hard way not to admit emotional vulnerability.

Almost 40 years after playing another driven amateur athlete in “Vision Quest,” Modine is solid as a man who might be that same figure far down a road rougher than expected, his wide-eyed optimism now gone and his sportsmanship carrying the whiff of compulsive escape. The younger actors are very good, if perhaps a bit mature-looking to pass as teens. McWilliams and Baker provide notes of flinty good humor, as does Sean Astin as a bike repair shop owner arm-twisted into being the team’s “sponsor.”

Highlighting the smooth tech and design contributions is Mack Fisher’s widescreen cinematography, which makes the most of numerous spectacular landscape vistas — even if apparently some of them are in reality Californian, rather than from the route dramatized. 

Reviewed online, April 15, 2024. MPA rating: PG-13. Running time: 109 MIN.

• Production: A Blue Fox Entertainment release of a Pense Productions presentation in association with A Very Lucky Distributor. Producer: Christian Sander. Executive producers: Scott Sander, Larry Roth. Co-producers: Phin Palmer, Greg Bartlett.
• Crew: Director: R.J. Daniel Hanna. Screenplay: Hanna, Christian Sander. Camera: Mack Fisher. Editor: Evan Schrodek. Music: Andrew Johnson.
• With: Matthew Modine, Cynthia Kaye McWilliams, Jahking Guillory, Jackson Kelly, Zachary T. Robbins, Damien Diaz, Leslie David Baker, Sean Astin.

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‘The Stranger’ Review: Somewhere Over the Freeway

In this tense thriller on Hulu, Maika Monroe plays Clare, a Kansas transplant in Los Angeles who parallels Dorothy in Oz.

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By Natalia Winkelman

“The Stranger” is a tense if tidy thriller that chronicles a ride-hail driver’s journey to surveillance hell and back. Her survival against all odds mirrors that of the movie itself: The film’s footage originally premiered in 13 short-form episodes in 2020 on the streaming service Quibi, several months before it shut down .

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Written and directed by Veena Sud (“The Killing”), the film follows Clare (Maika Monroe), a recent transplant to Los Angeles who falls into a freeway nightmare after her ride-hail passenger, Carl (Dane DeHaan), identifies himself as a serial killer. He claims he will murder her unless she tells him a good story.

If this opening sounds cliché, the film at least seems aware of the pitfalls. Sud creates parallels between Clare in Hollywood and Dorothy in Oz, assigning Clare a Kansan back story, a yapping terrier and a guileless attitude. And DeHaan embodies the tech-savvy Carl as a pasty, smirking male chauvinist who is sillier than he is scary.

It follows as something of a surprise, when, over the course of the second act, the film builds to a deeply agitated mood. Sud pulls off the tonal shift by keeping Carl largely offscreen; his looming absence, alongside Monroe’s knack for portraying paranoia, simmers with menace.

The Stranger Not Rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Hulu.

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‘Under the Bridge’ Examines a True Crime From Every Viewpoint — Except the One That Matters

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Alan Sepinwall

In the new Hulu limited series Under the Bridge , Riley Keough plays Rebecca Godfrey, a novelist who begins writing a non-fiction book about the murder of Reena Virk, a 14-year-old girl who lived in the same Canadian suburb where Rebecca grew up. In one episode, Rebecca’s father reads the first draft of the manuscript and wonders why she has chosen to focus so much on one of the accused killers, fellow teen Warren Glowatski, rather than Warren’s alleged victim.

Rebecca, who has had difficulty understanding her own actions and intentions ever since she came home to British Columbia, thinks on this for a moment. Then she suggests, “Because I’m challenging the reader to see that the worst thing he did isn’t who he is. People can do horrible things, and that doesn’t make them inherently evil. And I don’t know what the alternative is, other than me writing a sad story about a girl I didn’t know.”

The eight-episode TV version, adapted by Quinn Shephard, attempts to cover the entire story. It frequently shifts its points of view, jumping from Reena, to cruel foster child Josephine Bell (Chloe Guidry) and her well-to-do best friend Kelly (Izzy G.), Warren; Reena’s mother Suman (Archie Panjabi) and father Manjit (Ezra Farouke); local cop Cam Bentland ( Lily Gladstone ); and, finally, Rebecca herself. But in attempting to show the story through everyone’s eyes, Shephard and her collaborators ultimately struggle to find the same depth for which the actual Rebecca Godfrey was so celebrated.

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On the one hand, of course a TV show might want to elevate the roles played by two actors coming off of acclaimed roles — Keough’s Emmy-nominated work in Daisy Jones & The Six , Gladstone’s Oscar-nominated turn in Killers of the Flower Moon — over those played by less famous or celebrated young performers. (Though Javon Walton was a memorable part of the Euphoria ensemble as underage drug dealer Ashtray.) And when Keough and Gladstone are on screen, alone or together, you get it. The two of them, and Gladstone in particular, are so charismatic that they seem like the obvious place to center the story, even if there is no Cam Bentland, and even if the real Godfrey wasn’t particularly interested in making sure she was part of the narrative. 

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The same unfortunately happens here. Despite having eight episodes to work with, Quinn Shephard and company only sometimes are able to get more than surface deep with Josephine, Kelly, Warren, and the other teens. Some of them know exactly why they attacked Reena, and some barely understand at all. But the show can’t quite elevate the former group above pure sociopathy, and never fully untangles the knot that the latter group has tangled itself up in. Reena (who appears often in flashbacks, even after the murder) fares a bit better, as do the members of her family — including Anoop Desai as her uncle, the only relative who kept trying to understand her as she began hanging out with Josephine’s crew of mean girls and listening to Biggie CDs(*). But none of them feel as three-dimensional as they should, under the circumstances.

(*) Some of the more focused material deals with how these white suburban kids modeled themselves on Black and brown rappers and criminals — Josephine nicknames her clique CMC, for “Crip Mafia Cartel” — even as they treated Reena and her Black friend Dusty (Aiyana Goodfellow) as second-class citizens. 

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Guy's All-American Road Trip (2022) Season 1 Streaming: Watch & Stream Online via HBO Max

W ondering where to watch Guy’s All-American Road Trip Season 1 online ? We have all the streaming details right here. Guy's All-American Road Trip features celebrated restaurateur Guy Fieri setting out on a road trip with his friends and family. They travel across numerous states, engage in fun-filled competitions, interact with the locals, try out adventurous activities, and sample delicious dishes.

Here’s how you can watch and stream Guy’s All-American Road Trip (2022) Season 1 via streaming services such as HBO Max.

Is Guy’s All-American Road Trip (2022) Season 1 available to watch via streaming?

Yes, Guy’s All-American Road Trip (2022) Season 1 is available to watch via streaming on HBO Max.

The season starts with the Guy and his family stopping at a farm, engaging in various intriguing challenges, tasting delicious cuisines, and going on a memorable expedition. The remaining entries focus on more entertaining. This includes catching and cooking crabs, laying hands on Albanian cuisines, enjoying a Chinese feast amidst rain, and more.

The Fieri family, consisting of Guy Fieri, Lori Fieri, Hunter Fieri, and Ryder Fieri, starred in this series.

Watch Guy’s All-American Road Trip (2022) Season 1 streaming via HBO Max

Guy’s All-American Road Trip (2022) Season 1 is available to stream on HBO Max. The streaming haven HBO Max is a leading destination for top-notch content. It caters to a vast range of audiences and boasts TV shows, movies, and more.

You can watch via Max, formerly known as HBO Max, by following these steps:

• Go to HBOMax.com/subscribe
• Click ‘Sign Up Now’
• $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year (with ads)
• $15.99 per month or $149.99 per year (ad-free)
• $19.99 per month or $199.99 per year (ultimate ad-free)
• Enter your personal information and password
• Select ‘Create Account’

Max With Ads provides the service’s streaming library at a Full HD resolution, allowing users to stream on up to two supported devices at once. Max Ad-Free removes the service’s commercials and allows streaming on two devices at once in Full HD. It also allows for 30 downloads at a time to allow users to watch content offline. On the other hand, Max Ultimate Ad-Free allows users to stream on four devices at once in a 4K Ultra HD resolution and provides Dolby Atmos audio and 100 downloads.

Guy’s All-American Road Trip’s synopsis is as follows:

“Guy Fieri, his wife Lori, and his sons Hunter and Ryder, "load up their RV and hit the road with a caravan of campers for family and friends on a trip they will never forget." The Fieris and their friends take a "monster journey up the coast," making their way from Northern California through Oregon and into Washington. The road trip is filled with adventure, fun competitions, and of course, unbelievable meals.”

NOTE: The streaming services listed above are subject to change. The information provided was correct at the time of writing.

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The post Guy’s All-American Road Trip (2022) Season 1 Streaming: Watch & Stream Online via HBO Max appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More .

‘The Road to Ruane’ tells the story of an antic, unforgettable character in Boston’s music scene

The new documentary, which premieres may 4 at the somerville theatre, is a highlight of this year’s independent film festival boston..

If you attended a single rock show at any of Boston’s legendary neighborhood bars during the 1980s or the ‘90s, chances are you’d recognize Billy Ruane. He was the one-man mosh pit driving the rest of the crowd to the edges of the room, flailing like a rabid woodchuck, beer bottle perpetually held aloft, his tie carving figure eights in the rank air.

It was Ruane, a troubled trust-fund kid who fell in love with the local music scene while studying at the Harvard Extension School, who convinced the Sater brothers, Joseph and Nabil, to begin presenting live music at their Middle East Restaurant in Cambridge’s Central Square in the late 1980s. And it was Ruane who planted sloppy wet kisses on musicians while they were onstage, in mid-act. A relentless promoter and archivist of the scene, Ruane was also its biggest pain in the neck.

His death from an apparent heart attack at age 52, in 2010 , left a bomb-size crater in the city’s nightlife. “The Road to Ruane,” a feature-length documentary premiering Saturday, May 4 at the Somerville Theatre, a highlight of this year’s Independent Film Festival Boston, traces the deep impression left by an antic, unforgettable character.

Ruane, who suffered from bipolar disorder, was the son of the mega-wealthy investment banker William J. Ruane. Warren Buffett was his godfather. He grew up collecting stamps and coins and learning to ride horses.

He never gave up the ties and sport coats of his upper-class upbringing, but in every other way he rejected his privileged background. As the film makes clear, Ruane couldn’t spend his free-flowing inheritance fast enough. He’d buy up all of a band’s merchandise to give to friends. He’d spend hours on end at a Western Union service, wiring money to less well-off acquaintances.

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He was, as a Harvard classmate suggests in the film, a real-life combination of Jay Gatsby and the pirate Jack Sparrow.

“There was a lot of trauma in Billy’s life, some of which people may not be aware of,” says filmmaker Scott Evans. “It cemented who he was as a person.”

Evans completed the documentary over the past couple of years, picking up where Mike Gill left off. They were roommates in Los Angeles for several years, after Gill moved there from Boston around 2015 to pursue film-editing opportunities.

Gill, a drummer for several Boston bands beginning in the ‘90s, met Ruane while working at the Middle East. Soon he was shooting footage of various gigs at the direction of Ruane, who had arranged for others to videotape the Boston scene going back to the ‘80s. “The Road to Ruane”’s archivist, Greg Dalton-Kay, has created a YouTube channel where he has uploaded dozens of digitized tapes of live sets .

Evans is from the Baltimore area, where he was part of a Mod-revival scene in the early ‘90s with a group of friends who all rode Vespa and Lambretta scooters. They often provided visiting bands a place to crash, which is how he first met Gill, who was a member at the time of the Connecticut-based ska band Johnny Too Bad and the Strikeouts.

After Evans moved to LA in 1999, he began his editing career on a television documentary series called “Intervention.” He worked on “Katy Perry: Part of Me” (2012) and a film about the comedian Tig Notaro (2015). Later, he got Gill a job as an editor on “The Amazing Johnathan Documentary” (2019), a Hulu documentary about a dying magician.

The Ruane documentary, more than a decade in the making, was “a real passion project” for Gill, Evans says: “One interview would lead to three more. Eventually, he had over 80 interviews.” Raconteurs include Boston-bred musicians such as Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis, Mission of Burma’s Roger Miller, Letters to Cleo’s Kay Hanley, and songwriter Mary Lou Lord, who recounts how she spent the night before the release of Nirvana’s “Nevermind” in Ruane’s apartment, listening to records with Kurt Cobain.

The real caretaker of Ruane’s legacy proves to be Pat McGrath, longtime proprietor of Looney Tunes Records, which reopened in Allston in 2017, a few years after its old location on Boylston Street closed. In the last years of Ruane’s life, when his self-medication began to impact his health, McGrath was on the payroll of the Ruane Trust, charged with looking after his friend.

“To Billy, I was his personal assistant,” McGrath says. On the phone from his store, McGrath says he first met Ruane in the late 1970s, when he began noticing another guy at all the same shows he was attending.

“Being cursed with high self-esteem like I am,” McGrath jokes, “I’m attracted to someone who reminds me of me.” To him, his late friend’s story took on “operatic proportions.”

McGrath, says Evans, is “a great soundbite machine. As he says, the film is an examination of the human condition. Billy was so extreme, it’s easy to examine him.”

“The Road to Ruane” reveals multiple tragedies beyond its central dismay over Ruane’s demise. In the end, however, the film is a celebration of life — a big, loud, messy, enthusiastic life.

A complicated person, Billy Ruane lived to be “in service to other people,” as his sister, Lili Ruane, says in the film. “That heart never stopped giving until it gave out.”

THE ROAD TO RUANE

At Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square, Somerville. 7 p.m. Saturday, May 4. iffboston.org

James Sullivan can be reached at [email protected] .