Review of The Way Back (2020) by Chrismizerak — 11 Jul 2020

More often than not, the sports film genre as a whole tends to go through the motions in terms of scriptwriting and innovation. "The Way Back", which stars Ben Affleck as an alcoholic ex-basketball player being assigned to coach his high school's basketball team, is no exception in that regard. This is certainly a modest enough way to kill less than two hours of your time. At the same token though, there is an unmistakable familiarity to the plot's proceedings that you can literally be two steps ahead of the film itself in terms of figuring out its intended course of navigation. There was only one depressing side story I didn't exactly see coming that ties into the protagonist's real main story arc.

Outside of that, you can guess fairly accurately where this story will go and when specific story beats will unfold within the film's progression. In terms of execution, "The Way Back" delivers on what it's setting out to provide. In this case, it's a tale about someone overcoming their addictions and demons to better inspire and encourage those with potential gifts and talents in their hands. In other words, this is a typical story told in many sports dramas. Yes, it's a little tonally jarring to some of us when we thought it was supposed to end 30 minutes before it actually does. But at the very least, they justify why the last half hour needs to be in this story.

If you're looking for a meaningful emotional connection between a coach and the team members they mentor, you're not going to get as much screen time out of the team members as you might be led to believe. Yes, you'll occasionally get glimpses or echoes of character development out of the basketball players that the coach has to manage. But it's not much, and that's because the film is focused more on the coach and what he's struggling to overcome. And even then, it's not as thoroughly examined as some of us would have expected it to be. They still focus on all of these elements, but the content itself is territory that has often been addressed ad nauseum in several films and TV shows before it.

I don't recall any character in this story that truly stood out from the rest of the crowd. At best, they're serviceable and keep the plot clipping along. At worst, it will be more trouble trying to remember them than it's worth. My overall bottom line on "The Way Back" in a nutshell is that it's an ideal example of an average product. It's a competently put together film from editing and professional filmmaking perspectives, with decent performances from Affleck and the ensemble to make it a passable watch. Its shortcomings specifically stem out of intense competition from other superior sports stories that came before it and the overall lack of inspired and original elements to better distinguish itself from its peers.

There are moments of experimentation here and there, namely how our protagonist's alcohol and traumatic coping struggles are resolved at the end alongside the future of the team he coaches. It's a fusion between the ending you expect from most sports flicks and rare gems in the genre such as "Rudy" where the victory is more about obtaining a specific and small personal goal above anything else. "The Way Back" is best experienced as a one-time rental, as is most films of its ilk. It will fulfill basic standards just fine. But in a day and age when the film industry is struggling to fight an uphill battle for maintaining its relevance, a film such as "The Way Back" needs to bring more to the game now than ever before.