‘Hard Miles’ Review: Matthew Modine Stars in a Scenic Cycle Through the West
variety.comDennis Harvey Film Critic A grueling two-pedal route to the Grand Canyon just might provide the course-correction male juvenile offenders need in “Hard Miles.” With Matthew Modine as their teacher-coach, this fact-inspired tale covers familiar redemptive sports drama terrain.
But it’s traveled with affectingly understated assurance by director R.J. Daniel Hanna (“Miss Virginia”) and a strong cast, making for a satisfying scenic ride that picked up several festival audience awards last year.
In a film loosely based on the life and work of his character’s offscreen namesake, Modine plays avid cyclist Greg Townsend, welding instructor at a medium-security correctional residential school in Colorado.
That job environment is no picnic, given volatile students who can go from bantering to insults to fistfights in a flash. Plus he’s got his own demons to wrestle with — there are flashbacks to an abused childhood, and phone calls from an incarcerated brother keep urging Greg to see the dying father he’s estranged from.
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