"Around the Bend" is inspired by the relationship between writer-director Jordan Roberts and the absentee father he barely knew. It tells the story of four generations of men who are suddenly brought together by the chance to uncover the truth about their family's past. The journey will take them out on the road to a world full of surprises-some comic, some dramatic, and all of them personal.
Jason Lair (Josh Lucas) is a simple man with a simple wish: a normal life. This isn't an easy goal for the mild-mannered bank employee: Jason is newly separated from his wife, who has left him to care for their six-year-old son Zach (Jonah Bobo) while she paints in Nepal, and his ailing grandfather Henry (Oscar® winner Michael Caine), a former archaeologist close to death, is investigating alternative rituals for his impending funeral ("I'm not going in the ground!" he protests.) So when Jason's estranged father and Henry's son Turner (Oscar® winner Christopher Walken), whose checkered past includes exploits from the musical to the criminal, pays the family an unexpected visit, nothing is 'simple' or 'normal' in Jason's life anymore.
In the coming days, the somewhat reluctant Lair men will embark on a trip not only through the mythic beauty of the Desert Southwest, but across the family's own rocky emotional landscape. Forced together by a deep loss, these very different people find a great deal along the way-devastating secrets, amazing discoveries and, just as Henry wanted… each other.
Around the Bend concerns four generations of Lair men. There's eccentric patriarch Henry (Michael Caine), prodigal son Turner (Christopher Walken), bitter grandson Jason (Josh Lucas), and great-grandson Zach (Jonah Bobo). Shortly after Turner arrives in L.A. for a surprise visit, the ailing Henry dies. The remaining three take off on the road trip he had insisted on before his untimely passing. Jason is none too pleased--after all, his father ran out on him 30 years ago--but it was his Henry's dying wish. So there they are on the way to New Mexico, where long-buried secrets will finally be revealed. Heartwarming, if predictable, Around the Bend represents the softer side of its three leads and Walken is particularly effective in an uncharacteristic role (i.e., miles away from The Deer Hunter). His Turner is a bit odd, to be sure, but mostly he's just a regular guy who's made a few--rather substantial--mistakes. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
(10 votes)
3.
Around The Bend tells the story of four generations of men who are suddenly brought together by the chance to uncover the truth about their family's past. The journey will take them out on the road to a world full of surprises.
(4 votes)
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