My Review of "Ride the Eagle"

Ride the Eagle came out quietly in 2021. I've never heard of this movie but I thought it was an interesting idea. Also, I was pretty impressed that they could garner so many stars to play in such a small movie. It just recently came up on Crave in Canada so I decided to check it out.

The movie starts out with a guy named Leif. He seems to be a guy that's hopelessly lost in life. He's living in his rich friend's pool house and doesn't really have big aspirations in life other than touring with a local band. Yes he's in a local band as well. Life seems to be passing him by and he's in some sort of arrested development.

Unfortunately and fortunately for him he receives news that his mother has passed away. Leif has never known his mother and kind of hates her for abandoning him at such a young age. His mother Honey was a free spirit and basically couldn't handle the commitment of a child at the time she had Leif.

Honey has actually been attempting to rebuild her relationship with Leif for a long time. Sadly, Leif had such a grudge and feeling of resentment for her that he never reciprocated. All this comes to an end when he finds out that Honey had passed away from cancer.

Regardless of the situation, Honey still wanted to finally have Leif accept her apology and go on with his life. To do this Honey created a conditional inheritance for Leif. He would be able to have her old cabin in the woods if he accomplishes a series of tasks.

Through these tasks Honey is able to allow Leif to learn more about her and himself. These tasks are based on the many lessons that Honey had learned over her lifetime. She thought that it would be her last gift to Leif to instill these nuggets of information to him.

This movie is actually pretty funny. Honey and Leif are both somehow very different and very similar at the same time. They're both extremely eccentric but in different things. While the movie goes on you start realizing that the two of them would have been fast friends had they just been able to get along.

It's also a lesson to us as the audience to understand that life is precious and we shouldn't be holding grudges. We see this in Leif and a mysterious character. They missed out on the joys of being with Honey for what they thought were big issues. In the overall pictures even big issues can seem small.

The cast is surprisingly really well known for such a small movie. They all do a pretty good job with their characters. The exchange between Leif and his ex is pretty fun and nonchalant. It felt natural even though a conversation like theirs would probably never happen.

It's a nicely crafted movie but it isn't without its fault. It is quite predictable. You know exactly where people are going before they have to explain it to us. In that regard it almost feels like a cut and paste story. That may seem weird since we don't really see too many of these type of movies out there. The fact that the movie was predictable made it feel like I've seen this movie before. However, I can't recall anything that similar.

Overall, I still enjoyed this one. It had a lot of fun laughs and those laughs are based off reality. I could see how these events could be portrayed in real life. It's a feel good movie that more or less delivers. I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. It is a competent movie and different enough from the rest that you can have a good time with it.