We saw this movie last night and honestly I did not know what to expect. I was interested because I assumed Peanut Butter Falcon was some sort of weird reference to the Millenium Falcon, a Star Wars thing. This was not, but it ended up being a buddy movie between two lost souls looking for some meaning to life and finding it by going forward together. Zak is a twenty something young man who happens to have Downs Syndrome and has been placed in an elder care facility by the state since his family has abandoned him. His only outlet is a set of old VHS tapes that show a wrestling school which he decides is where he needs to go so he can become a wrestler and escape his life. We catch up with Zak in the starting scene and he has a half baked plan to distract the orderlies and make his dash out of there. It doesn't work and it doesn't matter. He is intent on succeeding, which he does at night.
The other buddy to this buddy bromance movie is Shia Lebeouf and he may be going nuts in real life but I loved his character in this, he seemed so real, Wife kept saying "it's like we can smell them stinking through the TV." He was some sort of crab fisherman, looked like it was set in Louisiana but it was really on the east coast. Zak is intent on getting to the wrestling school in Florida and Tyler (Shia LeBeouf) is more or less headed that way, so they join forces. Zak is in terrible shape for running away, he is in underwear and nothing else. Tyler is drawn to Zak and though he doesn't want to initially, he eventually gives him a shirt, pants and even his fishing boots to wear. We learn some of their back stories, Zak has been abandoned because of his Down Syndrome and Tyler lost his brother in a car accident. Tyler leaves a trail of trouble everywhere he goes and leaves his last place where he was working aflame after he was threatened. This causes trouble to follow him all the way down to Florida and eventually it catches up with him.
The other part of this is Zak has a therapist after his trail. She is responsible for him and her boss has threatened to get her in trouble for letting him escape. She knows he wants to go to the wrestling school, so she heads that way and eventually they all converge. The wrestler hero turns out to be Thomas Hayden Church and although the wrestling school does not exist anymore, the tapes are over ten years old, he dons the costume to make Zak's day. Zak gets to experience some good ol' fashion backyard wrastlin'.
The movie has a buddy structure, some reviews say it is like a Mark Twain adventure, because it is set in the south, but if you get past the grit and the dirt on the characters, you can see the movie has a lot of heart. Tyler never treats Zak like he is slow, he just tells them all people have limitations, such as "we don't all get to dunk a basketball, or do this or that." Focus on what you can do and you will be alright. Zak is stronger than he realizes and they eventually form a perfect family unit.
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