Let Him Go

As a kid everyone loves their grandparents, because they always seem to let you do what your parents wouldn’t let you. While my grandparents were pretty great, they were not Kevin Costner and Diane Lane, but that’s not really their fault now is it? In Let Him Go Costner and Lane play grandparents to a boy who is their pride and joy and when he might be in trouble they will do what it takes to get him back.

George Blackledge ( Kevin Costner) is a retired sheriff, who has given up that life to tend to his farm and live that simple life. His wife Margaret ( Diane Lane) is the perfect grandmother, even if she seems to have taken control of raising her grandson from his mother Lorna (Kayli Carter). Everything seems picture perfect, that is until their son James ( Ryan Bruce) dies in an accident, something that would change any picture. A few years have passed and Lorna has met a new man in Donnie Weboy (Will Brittain) and while at first he seems like a good man, Margaret sees that he is not when he hits her grandson and Lorna after some spilt ice cream. It is soon after that incident that Donnie and Lorna move out what seems like the middle of the night and with no word on where they were going. Margaret knows they are in trouble and wants to go and get them both. George and Margaret hit the road with what they know, with one mission, to bring their grandson and Lorna back with them, no matter the cost.

The phrase “speak softly, but carry a big stick” feels like a perfect way to describe Let Him Go. Writer/Director Thomas Bezucha, who wrote the screenplay based on Larry Watson’s novel lets everything move at a slow pace. He lets moments sit and build to their ultimate conclusion, one you may see coming. That though doesn’t lessen the impact, mostly because of an emotional conversation between Costner and Lane in a diner moments before things go really south. Costner and Lane are fantastic in these roles. It’s as if the casting director saw them as Clark Kent’s parents in 2013’s Man of Steel and said, “there is so much more to explore here”. I knew going in I was going to see some action, but I never expected to see so much emotion. Sure it does feel a little longer than it should have been, but that is a minor thing to complain about with this well written and well-acted genre film. I am all aboard on films like this and I hope you will share my enjoyment of this one in particular, if for no reason than to celebrate films made with Costner and Lane together. In my opinion, they should crank out a Taken-style film series with Ma and Pa Kent kicking-ass every couple of years, I’d watch every one of them.