Rails & Ties: Critic Reviews

It's becoming a bit tiresome watching Kevin Bacon suffer, and he isn't done any favors by this thudding weeper.

Rails & Ties is so self-consciously unadorned that it feels as if its director didn't want us to think that she was trying to make a cinematic statement. She hasn't.

While it features three strong performance and the debut of a promising filmmaker, the story line is obvious and rather melodramatic.

A modest but emotionally affecting drama.

I think somehow the filmmakers lost the way, lost sight of the people inside the plot.

All the astute acting in the world can't bring such a preposterous story into the station on time and intact.

The opening act is strong, but the story's trajectory is so obvious this often seems to be traveling along tracks as well -- into a valley of soap suds.

Mr. Bacon, Ms. Gay Harden and Mr. Heizer are talented enough almost to bring off this fragile conceit -- almost, but not quite.

A capable but modest directorial debut by Alison Eastwood.

The only conceivable reason for Warner Bros. to (barely) release this mush is as a favor to Clint Eastwood, whose daughter Alison directed.

[Director Alison] Eastwood has the advantage of two very fine actors, Kevin Bacon and Marcia Gay Harden, who have the ability to lift the most mediocre of material into another realm.

Fortunately for first-time director Alison Eastwood, Rails & Ties is populated by three sensitive actors who tread carefully through Micky Levy's anachronistic script.

This directorial debut by Clint's daughter gets stuck in a one-way dramatic track.

It's hard to get over the implausibility of the premise in Micky Levy's script, even though the characters themselves acknowledge that they're in a ridiculous situation.

As lovely as some of the footage looks and as committed as are the three lead performances, they serve only to make Rails & Ties play like an exceptionally well-acted and well-made Lifetime movie.

In common with her famous actor/filmmaker father, Ms. Eastwood seems to have an instinctual grasp of the petty grievances and triumphs of working-class American life.

Feels so forced and determined to convey a certain emotion that its authenticity is lost. And when there's no sense of authenticity, there's no emotional attachment.

Kevin Bacon turns in a solid, attention grabbing performance as a rigid, scornful man in a deep funk just trying to cling to a familiar world disintegrating all around him.

DVD is the perfect place for a movie like Rails & Ties. Somehow it's easier to block out the often forced nature of the plot and just enjoy the rich performances and the humane themes.

Alison Eastwood has created a film of quiet delicacy, something fragile yet resolute, and shot through with a life affirming thread that is brave enough to suggest that sometimes life does indeed blossom from tragedy.

The metaphors flow almost as freely as the tears in this sentimental weepie.

There's just not much here to recommend at all.

Everyone involved will move on to bigger and better things and leave this series of unfortunate events behind on the tracks, waiting for a midnight train to put it out of its considerable misery.

One highly unlikely circumstance after another become laughable, preventing you from being moved by the family tragedies depicted. They beg for tears, but a script this chock-full of holes is unlikely to elicit the desired effect.

Either an unsuccessfully manipulative, sappy melodrama or the most deranged concept for a family sitcom anyone has ever developed.