The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)
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The Peanut Butter Falcon Movie Review
The Peanut Butter Falcon is a 2019 adventure indie film directed by Tyler Nilson and starring Shia LaBeouf and Dakota Johnson. It’s a pretty clichéd, but very charming movie.
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“Friends are the family you choose“
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After running away from a residential nursing home to pursue his dream of becoming a pro wrestler, a man who has Down syndrome befriends an outlaw who becomes his coach and ally. Yes, we’ve seen films like this before (‘Rain Man’ immediately springs to mind) and the movie is entirely predictable and boring as a result in its third act.
Yes, that third act with the wrestling was very annoying and incredibly implausible in Zak winning the fight. But this type of adventure movie is all about the journey and not the destination. And the journey is a whole lot of endearing fun.
This is basically Americana at its finest. This Mark Twain-inspired adventure contains American swamps and wonderful landscapes that were stunning to watch and beautifully filmed, it also features folk American songs as well as the American dream and a standard road trip narrative.
In my opinion, the film was very successful at all of those elements, but simply the predictability to it really robbed it of more immediacy and originality. The third act is easily the worst, the first one is a fine set-up and the second act is where it shines the most as it’s adventurous and also quite funny.
Zack Gottsagen is very good as Zak, and of course this casting was highly authentic and impressive in that regard. Dakota Johnson is quite solid herself, but this is Shia LaBeouf’s show to shine, and he showed again how underappreciated of an actor he is. When he puts in effort, he really is excellent, and here he is both very grounded and also very funny at times.
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The Peanut Butter Falcon is gorgeously shot, at times stunning in its impressive imagery and also very well scored with the folk songs going so smoothly with the classical narrative. The direction is serviceable, though not great. The dialogue and humor are solid, and the central friendship is beautiful. I just wish it had more originality to it.
The Peanut Butter Falcon is undone by its utter predictability and unoriginality, especially in the third act which was the weakest part of the movie. But, there is no denying the immense charms that can be found in this movie that portrays Americana wonderfully through fittingly folk score, stunning natural landscapes and a classic Mark Twain-inspired road trip narrative. Shia LaBeouf stole the show with a very strong, humorous performance.
