One night, two men pursuing Tyler catch up with the trio, and Zak defends them with the gun. Eleanor soon finds them, but after learning her boss intends to send Zak to a more severe form of confinement, joins them to travel south. They eventually build a boat and begin traveling by water. Tyler teaches Zak various life skills, including how to use a gun, and eventually takes on the role of his coach, getting him in shape for his wrestling endeavors. Zak and Tyler become friends as they travel. ![]() Zak's caretaker at the nursing home, Eleanor, embarks on her own journey to find Zak, and return him safely to the facility. While on the run, Zak and Tyler meet, and embark on a journey to the Saltwater Redneck's wrestling school in North Carolina. Meanwhile Tyler, a man fired for bringing in illegal crab catches, decides to burn the gear of his rivals, and goes on the lam himself. Zak, a 22-year-old man with Down Syndrome, escapes from a state-run care facility with the help of his elderly roommate, to train as a professional wrestler under the tutelage of his hero, the Saltwater Redneck. The bond that forms between the two may give the other a different perspective on life, and may be broken by circumstances, including if their pursuers find them, Zak's being Eleanor, and Tyler's being two other fishers, Duncan and Ratboy, who will resort to violence to get their vigilante justice on Tyler if need be. Initially not wanting to have anything to do with Zak in dealing with his own flight, Tyler has a change of heart in finding that Zak is a fellow "outlaw", Tyler who vows to help Zak get to Ayden on his own way to Jupiter. In the process, he purposefully burns bridges with many working in the fishing or boating business in the area as he tries to get away to start life anew in Jupiter, Florida. Since the death of his older brother Mark, Tyler, who works for a boat shop in one of the river estuaries of the area, has lost his way, and has resorted to poaching blue crab traps to earn extra pocket money. Along the way, he encounters a young man named Tyler, who too is running away. This dream is stronger with the many taunts over the course of his life that he would never achieve anything for being "retarded". On his third attempt with help from some of the elderly but nonetheless wily residents, Zak, who continually watches an old VHS tape of his favorite professional wrestler Salt Water Redneck, is able to escape from the home in his pursuit of traveling to Ayden, North Carolina to attend Salt Water's wrestling school he's seen advertised on that tape, his goal to become a pro wrestler. But this fugitive figures he can help Zak achieve his dream first.Without a biological family anymore, young adult Zak, with Down Syndrome, is housed against his own wishes in the only facility in the state open to him, the Britthayven Retirement Home in Richmond, Virginia, where his primary caregiver is a young, caring woman named Eleanor. The grungy gent is running from his own problems, hoping to make it to Florida before some angry fishermen catch up to him. So the superfan releases himself of his own recognizance late one night, with the idea of enrolling in his hero’s academy for bodyslammers, and ends up meeting Tyler. On the videotape that Zak forces his elderly roommate (Bruce Dern) to watch ad nauseam, the celebrity keeps pitching the wrestling school he runs in North Carolina. ![]() ![]() He’s also a huge fan of pro wrestling, notably a colorful grappler known as the Saltwater Redneck. (This technically makes Tyler the movie’s Jim, though given his puckish immaturity, he’s closer in temperament to Tom Sawyer.) Zak is a thirtysomething with Down’s syndrome. LaBeouf’s character isn’t the film’s Huck Finn that honor belongs to Zak (Zack Gottsagen), a young man who’s escaped the nursing home in Georgia where he lives. There are also many rivers to cross, and rest assured, the travelers of this quirky Southern-fried indie will find themselves literally sailing down a few of them. Whether or not she’s a fan of the literary genius, the film they’re both in is most definitely in love with the author’s notions of adventure, the allure of perpetual motion and Americana. The woman he’s addressing is Eleanor (Dakota Johnson), a city-dweller who’s found herself in a middle-of-nowhere service station and in his company. The person saying this is a man who is, coincidentally, named Tyler, a swamp rat played by Shia LaBeouf so beautifully backwoods-scuzzy that you can practically smell the country funk coming off of him. “You like Mark Twain?” asks a character midway through Tyler Nilson and Michael Schwartz’s road movie.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |