There have been a number of movies I have seen over recent years with the same general theme of the new movie “Leave No Trace”. There are adults in a family who decide to live in the woods or homeless and they do this despite the fact that they have a child or several children. Leave No Trace is a true story of a war Veteran who decides he would rather live in an Oregon forest near a city and he takes his 15 year old daughter along for the ride. As I have said before in this blog, if you’re an adult and want to live homeless or in the woods, then that is the decision you have made in your life. If you also have a child you either forego your idea of wilderness life or give up your child for adoption. Its that simple. Its just unfair to the life of the child.

The reality of this story is that despite living in the woods for much of her life the teenage daughter – strangely named Tom – has been extremely well educated by her father. Tom is played extremely well by Thomasin McKenzie and there is talk of an Academy Award nomination for her because of this role – an opinion I agree with due to her natural acting ability. Her father Will, played very well by Ben Foster seems to be in a depressed coma for much of this film – and what bothered me is why he decided to live in the woods like this with his daughter. I thought this was a question that needed to be asked, especially given that there were so many opportunities to ask him why he wants to live in the woods. I consider this a major flaw in the movie.

The Rotten Tomatoes review for this movie are an extremely high 100% – but for me I thought this movie was at best a 75%, due to parts that dragged on too long and a story that while interesting, mostly because it is true, was rather depressing.

Overall I do recommend Leave No Trace.

44 years ago, The Towering Inferno was released and this is the last time I can remember a major blockbuster type of movie was released about a very tall building that catches on fire. The reason why the Towering Inferno is a much better movie about a tall building disaster than Skyscraper is because The Towering Inferno had a much better story. The problem with Skyscraper is that the entire story behind how the building catches on fire is absolutely ridiculous. The producers probably thought that if they came up with a feasible and understandable story about how an extremely tall building caught on fire than it might be compared to the Towering Inferno. Considering the inane story for this film, taking a risk that this story could compare to a very good movie in the 70’s about a tall building would be worth the risk.

The star of this film is once again Dwayne Johnson, who seemed to be in just about all the big blockbuster movies made today and he has one of the biggest movie careers going right now of all time. It was good to see actress Neve Campbell in a big movie like this and this is probably the first in her entire acting career for a a summer release like this – with the possible exception of the Scream movies from many years ago.

This movie should be seen by all fans of Johnson and for those who like special effects, but for those who like a decent story this movie should be missed.

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There are so many reasons why screenwriting is such a difficult art form and this all starts with the fact that a great movie has both great dialogue and a great story. The problem with Boundaries, that stars Christopher Plummer and Veera Farmiga is that it has good acting and dialogue but an extremely boring story. Watching this movie twice in a row can put a person into a coma and I almost fell into one before the two hours were up. The two hours dragged on like it was four hours and I remember looking at my watch way too many times.

The Rotten Tomatoes score for this film is around 50% and the IMDB number is a very low 3.2. I am surprised that someone of the stature of Christopher Plummer and Veera Farmiga read this anemic script and still decided to do this movie. The actor Peter Fonda along with Christopher Lloyd are also in this movie – demonstrating all too well how few good parts in good or great projects come along in an acting career.

I have seen worse movies than Boundaries and movies that are more boring, but this one just has to be skipped because of the long two hours of meaningless road trip story and boredom.