The Peanut Butter Falcon show off its Georgia locations to beautiful artistic effect and just for this one fact the film should be watched. No harm is done by Shia LeBeouf and Zack Gottsagen’s non-romantised and charismatic partnership during the run time. LeBeouf quite often a figure of fun in the press and amongst cinema goers once again comes up with the acting chops that is obvious he has. In less able hands this could easily have been mawkish and over-sentimental but Tyler is spikey, dishonest and hard to breakdown.

For the purposes of the story he has to breakdown but I found this change to be skillfully handled and gradually done to point that you do notice but the increments are judged just about right.

Throw in the rather lovely Dakota Johnson and you have a good trio to pull through the story. Well supported by baddies John Hawkes, in a role he is so good at, and Yelawolf, who looks the part, and drop-in Thomas Haden Church with a small dash of veteran Bruce Dern and you have very strong and capable cast.

All that could really spoil the film is the story and overall it’s a strong and fun tale. There is a nice lack of sentimentality for most of the run, Downs Syndrome actor Zack Gottsagen makes sure that his Down Syndrome character is shown warts and all and he is a fully rounded character and the whole film is better for it. Once again in lesser hands this could have been bad – so bad. Luckily for us it wasn’t.

To drive the story to where we are going the writers have stretched credibility to snapping point and this is my biggest bugbear after the credits rolled. Just dialling back on the twee and happy ending and you have a great modern tale of the opposites helping each other, learning lessons and becoming better people due to this. The final wrestling scenes and very end section whilst not snapping that stretch for me it was just about the snap. The most frustrating part was with just some judicious editing of the writing, a rethink of the conclusion and the film could have been a modern road-trip classic.

Nevertheless the fantastic cinematography and impressive all-round performances negate almost any minuses I could give this film. What a treat to see Mick Foley and Jake ‘the snake’ Roberts near the end, Roberts in particular has not had a great later life and was impressive as the slobbish, mean spirited Sam in his cameo.
As package The Peanut Butter Falcon is fine, fun, enjoyable yarn, it certainly is not without flaws which I feel could easily have been ironed during the early stages of making the film but who knows what the first vision was like before this came to our screens? It is easy to criticise with no prior knowledge and when all is considered you get a fun, uplifting story of love, redemption and backwater wrestling and Shia LeBeouf tearing it up again.