REVIEW: Walking Out

I have seen some bad movies lately.  Some of them have been for The Movie Breakdown podcast, and others have simply been because bad movies and I go hand in hand.  While browsing through titles on Netflix, I cam across a film from 2017 that I had never heard of before.  A quick bit of research showed that this was perhaps a solid film, one to break me free of the mundane that I had been trapped in.  A guy can only hold court with Uwe Boll for so long before he needs to rinse his mouth out.

The movie is called Walking Out, which is based off a short story by David Quammen, and is written and directed by Alex and Andrew Smith.  The setting is Alaska, and is about a fourteen year old David (Josh Wiggins) who is fresh off a flight from Texas to spend some time with his father, Cal (Matt Bomer).  Josh is a typical young teen, his attention given to his phone.  Cal is a manly man, living in the mountains and hunting for his own food.  He isn't portrayed in any kind of negative light with regards to his lifestyle.  He isn't some neanderthal who is uncivilized with a penchant burning diesel for kicks while waving a Confederate flag.  Cal is a model of responsible gun ownership and ethical hunting, very elegant in the reasoning for his lifestyle.  He takes David hunting for birds before getting him ready to head deep into the wilderness to hunt a moose that he had been tracking.

This hunt is very important, and Bomer shows well the seriousness of it.  Cal explains to his son that he shot his first moose when he was fourteen, when his father took him hunting.  We see flashbacks of a young Cal with his father (played by Bill Pullman) on the hunt, and we see that the red and black hunting hat that Cal is wearing is the same one that his father wore when they went hunting.  This trip with David is of the most importance to Cal.  He never sees his son, and we can tell through the directing and Bomer's performance that there is an essential need to pass some wisdom and tradition onto David.  Every piece of Cal's heart and soul desires to show his son the beauty of living in harmony with nature, enjoying the beauty of the landscape and being thankful for the bounty that it provides.

They set out into the vast mountain landscape, something that the Smiths and cinematographer Todd McMullen aim to capture with excellence.  We get a sense of the expanse, the rugged nature, and the danger associated with such a location.  At the same time the shots allow us to get an intimate understanding of Cal's connection with nature and the very heart behind why he feels he must spend this time with his son.

During the hunt danger lurks, with the Smiths creating a pulsating tension at times when we know that the wilderness could have tragedy in store for David and Cal.  It comes and goes like waves on a beach, rolling in and showing the vulnerability of the two before retreating back in amongst the trees and snow.  Eventually fate strikes, and it is up to David to get him and his father back to civilization before the elements take their lives.

While this could be waved off as a standard wilderness survival tale by some, the elements of the father son relationship create a rich experience, especially since there is also the historic relationship between Cal and his father getting revealed through the film.  It is more than just survival, it is about identity as well as a driven father fulfilling what he sees as his duty to his son and his own father.  Cals love for his son becomes apparent, and the really evolving dynamic is not just David's affection for his father, but his embracing of the very things that Cal desires him to adopt.

Matt Bomer is someone that I am familiar with as an actor.  He played the ever calm hitman John Boy in one of my favourite movies in the past few years in The Nice Guys.  He also had a role to play in both Magic Mike movies and was in the recent remake of The Magnificent Seven.  His portrayal of Cal is easily the best performance that I have seen of his, with the character so full of paternal care, devotion, and a deep-seeded need for his own internal atonement.  It is a delivery that nails everything needed, a vision into Cal that takes him off the screen and presents him as a real person that we can feel for.

Josh Wiggins is a fairly new talent, with Walking Out being only his fifth project.  It is hard to tell that this young man is relatively new to big screen acting.  On the shoulders of David is not only the need to survive, but to embrace the life and passions of his father.  David is a vehicle in a way for Cal's redemption, but that doesn't make David any less of a character.  The performance shows vulnerability, dedication, and an ability to evolve.  The arc of David is quite interesting, and it is topped of by a very powerful scene were David puts his toque on Cal's head to warm him up, and then putting upon his own head the red and black hunting hat.  It is a subtle moment, but one of the most powerful in the film as it signifies not only David becoming a man, but stepping into the lineage of his father's family.

This movie's best tool is that it doesn't sink to base or moderate levels of technique to manipulate emotions.  At the end of the film, every feeling that was going through my body was cultivated throughout the hour and thirty five minutes of run time.  It was an honest, grounded culmination that didn't tell me how to feel, but allowed me to sit in contemplation with my own emotions.  Without a doubt, I found this to be one of the lesser known gems of 2017.

Rating - 3.5 out of 4 stars