The Longest Ride
2 Waffles!

This is the anti-Fast and Furious. The Longest Ride is based on a book by Nicholas Sparks, so you know it will involve scenes by a lake in a sleepy Southern town, more melodrama than should be allowed by law and someone’s dramatic death. Yet, no matter how formulaic it might be, director George Tillman, Jr. conducts an all out assault on your tear ducts with plenty of support from Alan Alda. I was almost ready to surrender. Almost.

Britt (The Next “It” Girl In Waiting) Robertson, stars as Sophia Danko – a shy, but secretly spunky college senior from New Jersey who attends North Carolina’s Wake Forest. She’s studious and so serious about her love for Art she already has lined up an internship in New York City, which starts in two months.

Of course, all of that gets thrown into the middle of a hurricane of hormones and a tsunami of passion when Sophia gets dragged to the local rodeo and meets Luke Collins (Scott Eastwood) – a champion bull riding cowboy who looks like an underwear model and combines his rugged handsomeness with old school charm and chivalry.

As if that wasn’t enough to make her jaw drop, on the way back from their first date, Luke saves the life of a kindly old man, Ira (Alda), who has been injured in a horrible car accident (Yes, Luke is the most macho man in the history of the world).

Sophia strikes up a relationship with Ira as she reads his beautiful love letters to Ruth (Oona Chaplin), which makes her think about her own love for Luke, and the travails they face.

Can Luke and Sophia overcome their differences to find true love?

What happens between Ira and Ruth?

Like I mentioned before, when something is based on a Nicholas Sparks book, you know what you are getting into, but the team behind The Longest Ride does everything humanly possible to overcome a predictable story full of the traditional Sparks formula. I was almost ready to give it a pass until we have yet another preposterous ending, which is just as vital and recurring to the Sparks formula as the lake in a sleepy Southern town.

Alda is one of the most charming and beloved actors who has ever lived, and he uses every ounce of charisma and goodwill to make Ira a heartfelt, tragic and inspirational character. His narration is so full of emotion and delivered with such an effortlessly sounding perfection it could be a movie all on its own. Every member of the audience loves Ira, and roots for his love story to be epic.

Sadly, Craig Bolotin doesn’t give us enough of either story for them to be epic enough. We have two light love stories begging for more complication, more depth, more detail and more emotional wallop.

Sophia and Luke face two major hurdles, but neither one seems all that insurmountable as presented in The Longest Ride. We should see more struggling and more conflict.

Robertson seems to have enough acting ability to carry something more substantial, while Eastwood fulfills his role of looking like an underwear model (OK, he’s better than that, but utter jealousy keeps me from saying it).

Then, Ira and Ruth face tragedy, but it is resolved too easily and neatly. Their complication seems to re-emerge after being addressed earlier in the movie, as if Bolotin and Sparks couldn’t come up with something better, so they go back to the tried and true.

Bolotin and Tillman substitute plenty of emotion for story, so many will walk out satisfied, but The Longest Ride would have benefited from one less twist at the end and beefing up the plot.

The Longest Ride is rated PG-13 for some sexuality, partial nudity, and some war and sports action.