Paul Rudd (Alvin) and Emile Hirsch (Lance) carry this two-man show to success. Not long ago before I watched "Prince Avalanche" I saw "Our Idiot Brother" from two years ago for the first time and was very pleasantly surprised by Rudd's performance. And here he delivers an equally brilliant, yet completely different turn. He plays a road worker whose task it is to paint stripes and put up signs on the roads for a very huge area. Supposedly, it's gonna take all summer, so he got his girlfriend's brother on board to assist him. The film started nicely in a creative manner with Hirsch's ramming a stake into the ground and with every push we got one of the letters from the title. However, I felt that the first act stayed really interesting. It was a bit of a presentation of the two men and what they stand for, although this was rather shallow and depicted in depth much later in the film.
When Lance leaves for the weekend and Alvin stays in the wilderness, things become quickly much more interesting though. Alvin's meeting with the old lady in the ruins was truly heartbreaking and the highlight of the film for me. When Lance returns on Monday, drastic events have happened that alter both character's lives irrevocably and from that point on until the finish about an hour later, "Prince Avalanche" turns into a thoroughly entertaining somewhat different road-movie carried convincingly by the two protagonists. The scenery where it all plays is not only hauntingly beautiful and merciless (due to what happened there before) on several occasions, but it's also the perfect place for the film and adds a truly atmospheric component to the interactions of Rudd's and Hirsch's characters.
All in all, I recommend this film. If you've made it through the first act, things quickly turn out better quality-wise and it makes an interesting watch. Even if he was the inferior of the duo, it was nice to see Emile Hirsch work with David Gordon Green again after he came pretty close to an Oscar nomination for his work in "Into the Wild". The only thing I really hated though was Lance LeGault's death. He's the third-biggest character here and it's always quite a bummer to see a rip-message in the closing credits including someone who just gave a convincing performance and entertained you in the last 90 minutes. Broke my heart kinda. But don't let this keep you from watching the movie. His last movie is worthy closure to a career spanning over six decades.
When Lance leaves for the weekend and Alvin stays in the wilderness, things become quickly much more interesting though. Alvin's meeting with the old lady in the ruins was truly heartbreaking and the highlight of the film for me. When Lance returns on Monday, drastic events have happened that alter both character's lives irrevocably and from that point on until the finish about an hour later, "Prince Avalanche" turns into a thoroughly entertaining somewhat different road-movie carried convincingly by the two protagonists. The scenery where it all plays is not only hauntingly beautiful and merciless (due to what happened there before) on several occasions, but it's also the perfect place for the film and adds a truly atmospheric component to the interactions of Rudd's and Hirsch's characters.
All in all, I recommend this film. If you've made it through the first act, things quickly turn out better quality-wise and it makes an interesting watch. Even if he was the inferior of the duo, it was nice to see Emile Hirsch work with David Gordon Green again after he came pretty close to an Oscar nomination for his work in "Into the Wild". The only thing I really hated though was Lance LeGault's death. He's the third-biggest character here and it's always quite a bummer to see a rip-message in the closing credits including someone who just gave a convincing performance and entertained you in the last 90 minutes. Broke my heart kinda. But don't let this keep you from watching the movie. His last movie is worthy closure to a career spanning over six decades.