Starring: Channing Tatum, Justin Long and Rosario Dawson
Directed by: Jamie Linden
Rated: PG 13
Running time: 1 hr 40 mins
Anchor Bay
Our Score: 4 out of 5 stars
In what is sure to be remembered as “the year of Channing Tatum,” a smaller budgeted film he did last year (it played the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival) is finally seeing the light of day. That film is “10 Years” and it is, surprisingly, an intimate look at a group of young adults who return to their home town for their 10th Anniversary high school reunion.
The plot is fairly simple, if not occasionally clichéd. There is the big man on campus (Tatum) with his new girl (Jenna Dewan-Tatum, Channing’s real life wife) in tow. One of the gang has become a famous singer while another boasts of his cool life in New York City. And then there’s the former bully who is determined to make amends to all he picked on in the past Of course the BMOC is just there to see if his old flame, the former Big Girl on Campus, has shown up. The singer is encouraged to sing his hit song, which alerts the girl he wrote it for of his true feelings for her…apparently she’d never heard the song when it was a hit. And the bully (Chris Pratt)… no matter how hard he tries to make amends the old adage is true – once an ass always an ass. This tale and other similar stories are quickly brought to the forefront. Thank goodness for young and talented actors.
Most of the cast are unknowns making a small independent film. But the talented ones in “10 Years” are the names and faces you know. This is another in a string of bravura performances from Channing Tatum. Coupled with “the one that got away,” he says a quick hello to the others while worrying himself sick if he’s made the right choice with his latest lady friend. Solid work also by Long, Pratt and, most notably, Lynn Collins, whose Anna is the most deeply explored character in the film.