Mark Wahlberg stars as Joe Bell in a new movie about the “real life” Joe Bell. If you don’t know the story, Joe Bell was a grieving father who dealt with the suicide of his gay son by walking from Oregon to New York City and talking to anyone who would listen about the dangers of bullying. His son had been bullied at school and after figuring there was no way out and nothing would change, committed suicide. Joe Bell was a typical macho guy who didn’t understand and couldn’t really accept that his son was gay, but through the tragedy realized that he didn’t do enough to stop the bullying and accept his own son. The real story of Joe Bell is a moving story because it’s about a man who went through a transformation while grieving for a son that he couldn’t save. He became a motivational speaker of sorts and went across the country speaking at high schools, clubs, even churches, and gay organizations about the dangers of bullying. Through his journey, he found acceptance and understanding. These kinds of stories usually make for great movies and it’s an interesting choice for Mark Wahlberg, who is known to play tough guys. I will first say that I’m absolutely moved by Joe Bell’s story and remember hearing about this 8 years ago when it happened. His walk from Oregon to New York made national headlines and sadly he was killed by a truck driver who fell asleep at the wheel while he was walking on the side of the road, never completing his journey. I say that this is an interesting choice for Wahlberg because it’s not something that we would normally have seen him in. It’s a departure from the roles that he’s mostly known for. I can’t say that Mark Wahlberg is the perfect choice for this movie, but it probably is one of the best acting performances he’s ever given. With that said, it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is a great movie or truly captures the emotional story of Joe Bell. We’ll get to that in a moment.

Here’s what really works in the film and why you should see it. The performances are fantastic. Like I said, this is one of the best performances by Mark Wahlberg only to be rivaled by Reid Miller who played the son. And as you see throughout the movie, when Joe Bell is traveling, he has conversations with his dead son which in a lot of ways is his own way of grieving and trying to set things right with him. The chemistry is great and both actors do a fantastic job. Probably the best scene in the movie is when Mark Wahlberg’s Joe Bell meets Gary Sinise’s, character Sheriff Westin who experienced something very similar with a son who didn’t know how to tell his father that he was gay or didn’t know if his father could accept it. This takes place towards the end of the movie and there’s a lot of building up to it, but it’s these scenes that really truly pay off for the movie.  I will say that it’s the performances that really make this movie worth watching and it is very emotional. I think any young homosexual who’s trying to come out and trying to deal with Christian, masculine parents who may not understand will appeal to this character. Maybe even men who have had to deal with similar situations as Joe Bell will relate to that character in this movie. But unfortunately, the performances are the only thing that really makes this movie worth watching.

First, I feel like this movie is too short and we really don’t have enough time to grapple with all of the emotional levels of these characters. We get a glimpse of everything. This film was also another shining example of how a dramatic movie doesn’t always tell the best story whereas a documentary can do it better. It seems that the filmmakers chose to center on Mark Wahlberg grieving and having conversations with his dead son instead of the words he spoke about bullying at different events because we never hear that. We never hear Mark Wahlberg in Joe Bell’s own words so it doesn’t really lend a lot of gravity to what he’s saying. The film almost feels like it’s some kind of group therapy experiment for Mark Wahlberg playing a grieving father. We get glimpses of the bullying. We get glimpses of the father trying to deal with the embarrassment of his son, but nothing that we haven’t seen before in these kinds of films and because it goes by so quickly we never really have a chance to deal with our own emotions as an audience. What makes Joe’s Bell story so powerful is actually hearing him in his own words and what he truly spoke about on his journey and then hearing other people talk about him who met him along the way. This is where a documentary is better and while I liked this movie and Mark Wahlberg’s performance, I’d rather see a documentary about Joe Bell and get other people’s perception of what he did and how he dealt with his grief while hearing Joe Bell’s own words. This happened in 2012 and 2013 so it’s not like somebody didn’t have the capabilities of recording Joe Bell’s speaking engagements. That’s more powerful than Mark Wahlberg’s performance.

As I said, it’s a movie that’s worth watching at least once. It’s inspiring in its own way by the performances of the main characters and the Sheriff who had a similar experience. But after watching this movie I don’t feel like I really know Joe Bell, just that he was a grieving father who decided to talk about bullying and how it was wrong. In fact, the best moments of the film are him talking with his dead son especially when they sing a Lady Gaga song together. But is this film about his grief or the inspiration that he brought to other people by sharing what happened to him and talking about how being bullied is wrong especially if you’re gay. You just don’t feel that impact, either way, watching this movie. You’ll get a little bit of it through the performances of all the great actors in the film. Connie Britton is brilliant as the mother. However, I have to criticize the choices they made when telling the story and the fact that they only made this film an hour and a half. Surely there’s more of Joe Bell’s story to tell beyond a 90-minute film. The performances are what make this movie good and it’s nice to see Mark Wahlberg do something different. I don’t think I’ve seen such a strong performance by him since Boogie Nights… Maybe Lone Survivor, but there are a lot of missed opportunities when it comes to telling Joe Bell’s story. Hopefully, we’ll get a documentary that can do more in telling his story since the movie really didn’t do that.