A Walk In the Woods (2015)

A WALK IN THE WOODS  (2015)  ¢ ¢ 
    D: Ken Kwapis
    Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, Emma Thompson,
    Mary Steenburgen, Kristen Schall, Nick Offerman
Grumpy old men on the Appalachian Trail, from the book by Bill Bryson. Redford originally bought the movie rights hoping to team up with Paul Newman, and there's one scene in particular, involving a narrow rock shelf overlooking a long, steep drop to some water that inevitably recalls "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". Another movie this one risks being compared to is "Wild", the one where Reese Witherspoon hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, the differences being that Reese's character was half the age these guys are and hiked twice as far and did it alone. So score one for the lady. Redford and Nick Nolte play Bryson and his ne'er-do-well buddy Katz. As young men they bummed around Europe together, but that was then. They're in their 70s now, and nobody, but especially Bryson's wife (Emma Thompson) thinks the two of them setting off on foot in Georgia and heading for Maine is even close to being a good idea. So off they go. A scene early on suggests the kind of movie this might've been. Katz is bunking at Bryson's house before the trip, and with nobody else around, he slips into Bryson's office. There on the wall and the desk and the shelves are the tokens of a successful, productive life: awards, books, photographs, all well-kept and in order. As Katz takes it all in, the camera closes in on his face, and the visible evidence of years spent boozing, chasing women, knocking around and trying to stay out of jail. Nolte doesn't say a word. He doesn't have to. Everything you need to know about Katz at that moment is in the actor's eyes. Unfortunately, the script and Nolte's growly-bear performance reduce Katz to a cartoon, and it gets a little embarrassing when the boys go into a laundromat and Katz comes on to an obese woman having trouble with her underwear. It's exactly at that point that Bryson, trying to cross a stretch of mud under a freeway, turns into a cartoon character himself, and it's hard not to think you're being short-changed here, that there's got to be more to these two guys and their history than the movie's letting you in on. Nolte played Neal Cassady in a movie years ago, and you can see a little Cassady in Katz (assuming it's even possible to imagine Cassady as an old man). "A Walk In the Woods" has that kind of potential, and the scenery along the trail is undeniably gorgeous. But then you get Nolte in the laundromat, or Redford covered in mud, or the two of them in a bunkhouse gag that could be lifted from Laurel and Hardy: a case of potential diminished by too much cuteness and too many easy laughs.