"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. The Way Back's occasionally frustrating treatment of a formulaic story is often outweighed by Ben Affleck's outstanding work in the central role. Back in high school, Jack Cunningham had everything going for him.
This review originally ran earlier this month. We are republishing it on the occasion of the film's digital release. The Way Back is too good of a movie to be looked at only as the first mile marker on Ben Affleck's comeback journey.
Although "The Way Back" takes place in the present, a sense of disordered lives pervades this tough-minded studio film, which has the outward trappings of an inspirational sports drama but is primarily a recovery movie. The star, Ben Affleck, has been open about drawing on his own experiences with. "The Way Back" is being promoted obscenely, using Affleck's personal struggles with alcoholism and sobriety to sell the film's premise. Jack's enervating recovery in The Way Back is full of drab, predictable pathos instead of the stylized drama in Dawn of Justice. The Way Back movie reviews & Metacritic score: Jack Cunningham (Ben Affleck) once had a life filled with promise. The Way Back may be the most predictable and formulaic sports movie in the history of sports movies, but strong characters and a powerhouse performance from Ben Affleck manage to. The Way Back Director - Gavin O'Connor Cast - Ben Affleck, Al Madrigal, Michaela Watkins, Janina Gavankar.
Trailer The Way Back
An ex-basketball star gets a second chance at life as a coach — and a star gets a chance to remind you why you loved him in the Ben Affleck, second from the the right, in 'The Way Back'. Cast: Ben Affleck, Al Madrigal, Michaela Watkins, Janina Gavankar. Storyline: An alcoholic finds redemption in coaching his high school basketball team.
Through the movie, we learn that Cunningham is using alcohol to numb his. If The Way Back sounds like Hoosiers, only with Dennis Hopper's Shooter as the coach, you're not far off. Indeed, The Way Back touches on many of the same themes and includes several identical plot points, but it still winds up feeling like a much different movie. Jack Cunningham is what some might call a "functional" drinker.