Floated2 At Any Price was marketed as a father-son drama about their different conflicts regarding the personal careers of both characters (Dennis Quaid & Zac Efron). It is quite such but in regards, both the characters having different aspirations. Quaid wants to be a successful family farm owner while Efron wants to be a professional race car driver. The movie is rather odd is some parts and not as touching or sensitive as lead to believe. With not very likable characters (especially Dennis Quaid) who mails in another performance, and Efron's character of being disrespectful to those in his corner.The best parts about the film were those featuring Zac Efron with the racing stunts, as this was the better plot and should have been the main focus, instead of Dennis Quaid and his corrupt seed farming/internally business. Things that were in question were a scene where Efron crashes his car into a tree (accidentally- driving in a cropfied) then is sent to a hospital. Later once he comes out of the hospital, he suddenly doesn't want to become a Nascar driver anymore and decides to quit (this was leading up to a scene after he had a bad turnout at a race). Overall, it was a very weird and off switch for the character, where we first see his keen aspirations of becoming a great race car driver then one bad finish and an accident causes a quit of his dream.The ending last 20 minutes or so (once his character 'accidentally' kills the rival) is quite something. The thought process and characters of both Quaid and Efron didn't seem as real people, and in the very end, the truth was never set free by either character. The film just ends. Poor ending but it was understood as the writers possibly didn't want to drag on. Though another 10-15 minutes could have worked. All together, At Any Price is quite a forgettable drama with little to nothing to prove that we have not seen before.

napierslogs "At Any Price" is a small Midwestern film about a small Midwestern family in a small Midwestern town. It translates well for any farming community. It also translates well for any character study fans, but it's the thrilling elements that should have been heightened to make it a better movie overall.Dennis Quaid stars as Henry Whipple a determined business man failing in the farming business and Zac Efron as Dean Whipple who wants to be doing anything other than following in his father's footsteps. He's also the son who stayed who gets to watch his parents dote after the possible arrival of his older brother who went to find himself on a whirlwind adventure around the world. Dean is stuck in Iowa trying to find himself while being groomed for the family farm but wanting to race a car around a track in circles.As a character study, it had the perfect set-up with both Quaid and Efron playing the troubled Whipple men with half-assed smiles on their faces and fear in their eyes. But "At Any Price" isn't a character study; it's a thriller. The mysterious score starts early on and keeps you guessing when something dark or sinister is going to occur. Sub- plots are introduced with Dean's attention-starving girlfriend and Henry's illegal activities. And while they do eventually lead to something interesting, they're hardly interesting themselves and could have been tightened up significantly.And then comes the thriller climax and the character study climax when father and son finally have something to connect with. But as the thriller climax, it just kind of happened with no additional build-up or intrigue and it made everything that came before it a little less interesting then it was before. A decent movie about the flailing Whipple men just went out with a whimper. "At Any Price" is decent as a small indie film but it needed to be tightened up with more significance to the on-going events to be a good movie.

carlo-mar-ll This whole comment might be a spoiler, so if you are going to see this movie do stop reading.Maybe it was my fault, but I started seeing this movie waiting for things to get a little bit better on the events in the screen, and they got worst and worst.By the middle, after a certain event (I won't spoil it telling you), we said it was enough and stopped the disc player.This movie tells a tragic story. A tragedy in the sense that the characters do everything to change their destiny and can't.So if you like tragedies, do watch this movie. If you don't, just be aware of what you are about to see.

mdixon after watching I was surprised by its low IMDb rating (5.6 currently). I liked it, it held my attention, felt on its own it was entertaining and was one of those I think to myself "I'm glad I watched that". I'm not a film critic or film-making buff so don't know mechanically what makes a movie good, it's more a thing of you know it when you see it.to be fair before writing this I read some of the less favorable reviews and can see they have their points. but in imd-land the mid-5s kinds of movies are getting into the range where a movie is clearly not well-thought of and it's hard to see how that can be true of this one. also I don't watch previews/trailers or really read much besides the brief IMDb synopsis at the top so maybe my lack of expectation helps.I watched this because I like dennis quaid, he's one of those actors that on the screen I find easy to like and his performances are usually good. this isn't the kind of role I'm used to seeing from him (the clever/charming/gregarious kind of guy) but I thought he played it quite well.the overarching theme seems to be there's no overarching theme. it was more or less an hour and a half of stuff involving people that happened to be in iowa, some of which happened to be farmers. it didn't seem to me it was pushing any kind of viewpoint, we just get to witness some unusual things that can make one think "what would I have done in that spot?" it almost had the dryness of a documentary in that there's no crescendos (musically or otherwise) trying to tell the audience what to feel where. to me the movie was more about what's inside the characters rather than what happens externally when they interact. from that standpoint I wasn't put off by some of the disjointedness other reviewers rightfully point out.I did notice in hindsight once the movie was over that much of it seemed formulaic and had many of the kinds of twists every other movie has, but what struck me was being engrossed enough that as it unfolded I didn't really notice until it was over with.bottom line for me is it was entertaining and worth the time spent watching it.