‘Around the Bend’

‘Around the Bend’

The reason Christopher Walken only does cameos is because he’s figured out how to be a fine-focus walk-on artist, usually at the rate of one appearance per movie. He’s like the prize in the Cracker Jack box: You don’t buy the ticket for Walken but you keep digging’ around until you find him. In “Around the Bend,” he has a big enough role to walk around in, and reminds us what a very good actor he is. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work; it’s one of those movies where everyone seems to be Behaving all the time, as if ordinary life had to be jacked up into eccentricity.

The film begins with Michael Caine as old Henry, bedridden and being looked after by his adult grandson Jason (Josh Lucas), his great grandson Zach (Jonah Bobo), and Katrina (Glenne Headly), the Danish live-in. He has one of those unspecified diseases that allow for grand gestures on the way out. There is a generation missing from this picture, but it fills itself in when Turner (Christopher Walken) amazingly comes home again for the first time in 30 years.

Jason doesn’t much like his father, who abandoned him. Young Zach is impressed: You’re not dead anymore! Turner says he must leave again tomorrow morning, but won’t say why (which turn out to be excellent reasons). Henry rallies himself for one last sortie into the world with Zach, and the two settle into a booth at a nearby Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, where Henry scribbles instructions on Post-It notes and stuffs them into KFC bags inside other KFC bags inside other KFC bags like nesting dolls, outlining a kind of treasure hunt. Then he dies.

At this point there is no need to worry about spoiling any suspense concerning who will get custody of little Zach’s drum set.

When they open everything up, as if it were the reading of a will, they learn that Henry wants to be cremated along with his dog, and have his son, grandson and great-grandson drive from Los Angeles to New Mexico, scattering ashes at points on the map. One specification: Every bag must be opened in a KFC restaurant, and the ashes scattered nearby.

Turner says he’s going to do this. Of course there are reasons he should not (he walked away from prison), but one grand gesture deserves another.

The three men steer an extremely old VW van down desert highways from one chicken outlet to another, eating fried chicken at every meal in all seriousness (this is the spiritual sequel to “Supersize Me”). Why did Henry insist on KFC? Is it product placement? Is KFC trying to drum up its post-interment business? I doubt it. They go to KFC because Jordan Roberts, the writer-director, wanted them to be Characters and thought KFC would be quirky or funny or something.

But this is not exactly a comedy. It is, alas, a voyage of discovery, during which old secrets are revealed, new ones are shared, and the generations find peace with one another. These passages are well acted by Walken, Lucas and young Bobo, but I always felt as if they were inhabiting a story, not their lives. Walken has some nice moments though; I love how he lets out his dialogue like he’s giving each word a friendly pat on the head first. There’s a good scene where his son accuses him of stealing a spoon; the explanation shows us something important about the way he lives now.

“Around the Bend” has got good will in it and its heart’s in right place too. It’s nice to see Walken play a part that stretches him and there might be people watching this who do get sucked into caring about these men trying to figure out how to talk to each other but I don’t know. It all seemed too set-up for me I’m aware movie characters have scripts but that doesn’t mean they should feel like they do.”

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