The River Why

MPAA Rated – PG-13
It’s 1:44 Long
A Review by:
The Dude on the Right

The River Why
Movie Stats & Links
Starring: Zach Gilford, William Hurt, Amber Heard, Kathleen Quinlan
MPAA Rated: PG-13
Released By: Image Entertainment
Release Date: Novermber 8, 2011
Kiddie Movie: They’ll probably get bored. It’s kind of lovey-dovey.
Date Movie: As long as you are both prepared for a lot of slowness.
Gratuitous Sex: It’s all PG-13, just some partial stuff.
Gratuitous Violence: Just some arguing mostly.
Action: Nah.
Laughs: Ehh.
Memorable Scene: I did like the scene where Gus was “tiring” the big fish.
Memorable Quote: Nah.
Directed By: Matthew Leutwyler
Cool Stuff About the Blu-ray? Nothing really, just some interviews with the cast and crew.

Gus’ dad (William Hurt) and mom (Kathleen Quinlan) like to fish.  And I’m not talking about a leisurely trip in a boat to kill an afternoon, nope, they are career fisherpeople, with fly-fishing being their forte, and competition amongst each other in their life. Gus, though, is now 20 years old, wants to live his own life (which is actually just fishing, but on his terms), and after a blowout at home he moves out, much to the sadness of his parents.  But young men must sometimes fly the nest to find themselves, and Gus finds himself living in a secluded cabin, by a river, and fly-fishing.  Such is “The River Why.”

So, you would think things would be simple out in the middle of nowhere, wouldn’t you?  Nope.  Turns out living in the middle of nowhere brings out some odd characters, and a girl, Eddy (Amber Heard), whom Gus ends up falling for.  Turns out she likes to fish, too.  Go figure.

So where am I going with this review?  Hmm?  I guess the easiest thing I can say is that after watching “The River Why” it turns out it isn’t easy to make an entertaining movie centered around both fly-fishing and finding one’s self, but “The River Why” does give it a good try, and looks really good doing it.  The thing with the movie, for me, was that as beautiful as it looked, and as great as many of the fishing scenes were shot, there wasn’t a lot of substance to the film, mostly a lot of “Ooh, isn’t this scenery beautiful.  Oh, wait, lets try to get a little quirky with this new character who might try to help instill a life lesson to young Gus.”  In a weird way the movie reminded me of the movie “Big Fish,” which like this movie, about half-way through the film, I just didn’t care that much about anymore.  I really wanted to like “The River Why” more than I did, but it just seemed to drag too often, and not in a good way.

It is a nice, feel-good movie about a young man trying to find himself, and to do so he has to get out of the grips of his parents, and the story with Eddy is nice enough, but wow, I just kept waiting for some kind of payoff, and even with the ending, it just didn’t get there quick enough.  Sadly it’s 2 stars out of 5.

Blu-ray wise, not too much is extra, which is fine, just some interviews with the cast, so get the movie for the story.

That’s it for this one!  I’m The Dude on the Right!!  L8R!!!