Before We Go

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Captain America made a movie that feels like a cheap knock-off Richard Linklater.

Chris Evans directs himself in a starring role as Nick, a trumpet player busking in Grand Central Station one night when he can’t help but notice Brooke (Alice Eve) in distress when she misses the last train by a fraction of a second. Her purse has been stolen and now she can’t get home to Boston, and her tears tell us it’s imperative that she does.

Structurally similar to Linklater’s Before Sunrise movies, the couple spend one romantic night together roaming the streets of New York City, talking and getting to know one 1297744296232_ORIGINALanother. Like any first date, the movie doesn’t play all its cards right away. It flirts with us a bit, hinting at what’s still unsaid. The unfortunate thing is that this movie never puts out. It teases a lot of things that never actually develop. When our pants are down, nothing’s doing. This movie turns out to be a disappointing date: there’s no heat, no essential spark. It never delivers on its promise. And I was really frustrated with it dropping the ball so often. That’s just lazy.

Evans and Eve are charming, but not charming enough to overcome the sometimes cheesy script and the frankly unlikely scenario. Have you ever been on a first date and wished there was a big red button that you could push to end it? Like, you don’t want to hurt their feelings, they’re not really a bad person, just not the right person. You’re already bored 10 minutes in and you’re dying to abort, but now you’re stuck – and god forbid they order dessert. You want an out.

While real-life dates don’t have big red buttons, Netflix kind of does. It’s called STOP. I could have stopped this movie at any time and I didn’t. I kept willing it to get better. I thought I might warm up to it. That maybe I was just nervous, and it couldn’t possibly be this dull. But it was. Lesson learned. You gave me cinematic blue balls once, Captain America. Shame on you. I will not be going back to his place for “coffee” any time soon.

18 thoughts on “Before We Go”

  2. Brittani

    That’s disappointing. I’ve had this in my Netflix queue for a while. I haven’t seen Linklater’s “Before” trilogy, maybe I’ll like this one a bit more since I can’t compare it?

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  7. tubularsock

    Jay, have you considered marketing “real-life date big red buttons”? Tubularsock can see them catching on big time. Tubularsock hates movies that he could write better and wonder how they could miss the obvious …….. there are so many. What gives?

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    1. Jay Post author

      I don’t know. I have no idea how stuff like this and much much worse gets made all the damn time.

      I’ll look into prototyping the big red button but it’s probably not my forte.

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  8. kmSalvatore

    Lol Jay , you’ve done it again , u just crack me up with the movies you DISLIKE. And also thank you, first 2 lines I thought Ohhh goodie , glad I finished reading it all.. Yep I’ll miss this one

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  11. Lauren

    I actually liked this movie. I thought it started out slow and I didn’t like the “you pick” ending, but I didn’t think it was THAT awful. I actually just watched and reviewed it a couple days ago. I found it a light watch, but I wish it had given a bit more, but it was still enjoyable.

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  12. calensariel

    “Have you ever been on a first date and wished there was a big red button that you could push to end it?” You know there’s an advertisement on TV right now about that very thing! Sort of…

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