The Peanut Butter Falcon **** (2019, Shia LaBeouf, Dakota Johnson, Zack Gottsagen, Bruce Dern, Thomas Haden Church) – Movie Review

Writer-directors Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz’s 2019 buddy-buddy adventure comedy drama The Peanut Butter Falcon is a highly entertaining, warm hearted crowd-pleaser, with a strong screenplay and excellent performances, as well as a nice sense of place, with eye-catching, atmospheric filming in Savannah, Georgia.

It’s as likeable and appealing a film as we’ve seen in a while. Unfortunately, ultimately, it doesn’t cut very deep, feels a little thin and underdeveloped at only 97 minutes, and fizzles out at the end, going out with just a whimper and not a bang. All the best stuff is at the start and in the middle of the movie. But its cuddly likeability easily sees it through and it leaves a happy glow behind.

Shia LaBeouf, Dakota Johnson, Zack Gottsagen are tremendous as the film’s three stars. Gottsagen plays the Zak, a 22-year-old man with Down syndrome, who runs away from his care home, where he share a room with old  Carl (Bruce Dern), to pursue his dream of becoming a professional wrestler by learning at the wrestling school of The Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Church). LaBeouf stars as Tyler, on the run from a couple of vicious vengeful meanies (John Hawkes, Yelawolf). Johnson plays the kindly nursing home employee who is charged with bringing Zak back.

It is very much a blokes’ buddy movie, with LaBeouf and Gottsagen establishing sweet rapport, but Johnson is lovely, erasing memories of Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, well nearly, anyway. It is nice to have LaBeouf back, especially on this form. He’s totally convincing, even when his character has to be a bit of an unreal, wish-fulfilment fantasy figure. It is meant as a compliment to the film-makers that their generally adept screenplay makes the unlikely seem possible, and the unbelievable seem believable, as they confidently and commandingly tell a plausible tall story.

The Peanut Butter Falcon becomes Zak’s wrestling name.

Bruce Dern, who is also notable, has got around: he was in Marnie, with Dakota Johnson’s grandmother Tippi Hedren, Mulholland Falls with her mother Melanie Griffith, and in Django Unchained with her father Don Johnson.

The Peanut Butter Falcon screens at the BFI London Film Festival on 3 October 2019 and is released in cinemas on 18 October.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

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