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- The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with Affleck's performance receiving praise. However, the film suffered at the box office due to COVID-19 because it was only in theaters for two weeks.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_Back_(2020_film)
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Mar 6, 2020 · Even if you're not a sports fan, you can follow the action. "The Way Back" is about a ragtag basketball team at a Catholic high school, and a damaged alcoholic coach ( Ben Affleck) who finds a way to force them into being winners, into being better people, even. Jack Cunningham (Affleck) is a mess.
Mar 6, 2020 · The Way Back stars a terrific Ben Affleck as a grieving alcoholic basketball coach. Ben Affleck’s offscreen life weaves into his excellent performance.
Mar 4, 2020 · The raw and redemptive tale of a broken soul who starts piecing himself back together when he’s hired to coach his old high school basketball team, “The Way Back” only sounds like a movie that...
Mar 4, 2020 · 'The Way Back' gives Ben Affleck's ex-basketball star a second chance at life — and it's a comeback story in more ways than one. Our review.
- Ben Affleck convinces as a man fighting his demons while coaching a high school basketball team.
- Verdict
By Witney Seibold
Updated: May 21, 2020 11:50 pm
Posted: Mar 4, 2020 2:00 pm
With The Way Back, director Gavin O'Connor (Warrior, Miracle) has prepared a very familiar and very comforting, audience-pleasing stew. Sports movies have long been, throughout the broad history of the genre, reliable comfort food that can reasonably be applauded for cleaving to traditional, predictable story beats; daring originality is welcome in sports movies, of course, but falling back on cliché is not necessarily a vice for them. So while O'Conner, a slightly more thoughtful director than your average filmmaker, has perhaps added a few generous tablespoons of welcome soulful melancholy to The Way Back – effectively producing a satisfying meal – its baseline flavors are what make the film ultimately a genial and emotional entertainment. The rest of the review shall be, I assure you, free from further food metaphors.
In The Way Back, Ben Affleck – operating in full-on sad-sack mode, perhaps his best note as an actor – plays a bitter alcoholic construction worker named Jack whose life is clearly on the downward slope; in the first five minutes of the film, we see him sneaking beers at work, slipping gin into his coffee mug for the drive home, and taking a few depressive chugs from a can he keeps next to his shampoo in the shower. The Way Back, then is going to be less a film about winning championships and Big Games, and more about the delicate process of recovery from addiction.
Jack is also a former basketball star from his high school days, and those who meet him mention that fact frequently, often compounding how badly he's burned out. Into his grey milieu, Jack is offered a coaching position at his old high school where he is invited to take the school's flagging basketball team from – and we can all probably recite this part in unison – being the losing-est team in the state to being a hard-working band of teammates who have all begun to realize their talent and potential.
The Way Back is a gratifying sports movie that is made better than the average by some sadness, some realism, and Ben Affleck's performance. The Way Back might serve as an excellent double feature with Gavin O'Connor's Warrior, another sports movie that spices up (o.k., one last food metaphor) a perhaps-known sports narrative with excellent perform...
- Witney Seibold
The Way Back's occasionally frustrating treatment of a formulaic story is often outweighed by Ben Affleck's outstanding work in the central role. Read Critics Reviews
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Mar 5, 2020 · In this movie review of the new film The Way Back, reviewer Neil Pond takes a closer look at one of Ben Affleck's most personal roles to date.
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