I wanted to see the new Morgan Freeman science fiction film, “Oblivion”, but the producers insisted upon casting Vanilla-Puddin’-in-a-Cup Cruise and that just ruined it for me. I like mindless entertainment as much as the rest of us, but not mindless acting and profit-from-the-peasants by casting-aged-beefcake.

So I went to see “The Place Beyond the Pines” because I am a film critic and film critics are required to like the gritty over processed action flicks featuring the sloped shouldered Pretty Boy.

Remember Ben Affleck’s film, “The Town?” Now that was a gritty work of art. “The Place Beyond the Pines” tries to be as gritty but its dialog doesn’t have the poetic cacophonous crackle and pop that sizzled in “The Town.”

Here is the plot: Ryan Gosling plays a motorcycle stunt rider in a crappy carnival. He has so many tattoos that I had a compulsion to buy a belt sander and do him a favor. I could not get too much into the plot because, I swear, the ink pictures on his body became a distraction—like a barbershop quartet singing “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” during a funeral. Ryan’s method of dress is equally horrific; homeless people have better sartorial style than this character. Anyway, he breeds. No brains required on that score. And he did just that with Eva Mendes. They had a child. He learns this on a return visit. He feels compelled to do something profoundly stupid (rob banks) to provide for the child and Bradley Cooper, a cop, gets dragged into the cluster—uh—fluster. This starts a chain of events that lasts two generations.

What I just described is sort of the first act of a play; the rest of the story/movie is the second act and focuses on the second generation. I remember, once, an expert on adolescents say that being a parent of a teenager would be easier if parents could put 12 year olds in a box, feed and educate them through a hole, and then let them out at 21. Note to DFACS: it is a joke. I thought of this when I watched the offspring of the cycle rider and the cop. Two teenagers: poster children for birth control mixed with sins-of-their-fathers claptrap.

If it were not for the talents of Mr. Gosling, Mr. Cooper, Ms. Mendes and the supporting cast, this film would have been grueling if it were not for the underplayed acting skills of the aforementioned. Just one comment on poor Ray Liotta: why does he always have to play a slimeball?

A few other things that gripe me: 1) I hate the title, it seems clumsy to me. 2) It’s too long. 3) Director Derek Cianfrance’s apparent obsession with anything unwashed, dingy and frumpy (did he have to make Ms. Mendes look like she was beaten by a frumpy bat? She looks like creatures who troll the Wal-Mart at 2 a.m.). 4) Why does there have to be so much smoking? Watching Mr. Gosling, Mr. Mendelsohn and the teenagers smoke gave me a nicotine headache. 5) Why do we have to see white, suburban white boys affect the cadence of Eminem; isn’t one of those prancing clichés enough?

Here is what I did like: it tried. However, “The Place Beyond the Pines” is the kind of film critics will love and most filmgoers will wonder why did they pay money for it when they could see the Prince of Scientology pretend he is still young? Serious film fans might appreciate the grease-encased Ben Mendelsohn because it is that kind of art film. It glorifies in its Independent Film Channel heady bouquet. Perhaps, served in the right glassware, “The Place Among the Pines” flavors stimulate the soul.

Like fine, dry, white wine, I can appreciate that it is good stuff, but I would rather imbibe something else.

“The Place Beyond the Pines” earns (from me) three and a half bowties out five.