Don't listen to the negative reviews

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I was not surprised to see that a bunch of wealthy privileged actors such as Nat Wolff, James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vincent D'Onofrio, Josh Hutcherson, John Savage and Ed Harris who were attempting to represent the homeless men and women during the depression era as underpaid fruit pickers failed so miserably and were so ineffective in being believed. The result was such a poorly finished film attempting to re-create the imagery and drama of such a classic Oscar winning film as Henry Fonda in the 1940 film The Grapes of Wrath.I was surprised to see such reputable actors as Robert Duvall and Sam Shepard agreeing to partake in this film project. I would have thought they would have agreed to forfeit their salaries as well as pay out of their own pocket so as not to allow the release of this piece of crap. Mrs. Shullivan and I were laughing hysterically at the attempt of Selena Gomez in the scene where she is supposedly having a difficult time giving birth until her two heroes show up as half a dozen of her dumbfounded family members stand around helplessly. James Franco steps in as her quasi doctor and catches the newborn popping out of Gomez's birth canal and Nat Wolff who looked simply amazingly stupid holding Selena's hand as she laughingly grunted and groaned through each contraction.What were the editors thinking saying their film is now complete? I say it was complete as well. A complete piece of third rate junk, not worth releasing to the general public who were never privy to the real hardships faced by millions of homeless men and women trying to eke out a living picking apples before unions and federal laws were initiated and governed the land in the later years.I give this film a 2 out of 10 rating

Here we have a story that was told well - directing and writing was good, cinematography, editing and sound was great, but the pace was very slow and missing substance. It felt like someone monotonic was telling a story, but with no punch-line, or closing plot message. It wasn't a bad film, and the cast were all on point, but is was just missing that wow factor for me. It's a 6/10 from me.

My wife and I watched this at home on BluRay from our public library. In fact she only watched the first half of it because the story moves very slowly.The movie is a screen adaptation of a John Steinbeck novel of the same title. Steinbeck was a California valley and Stanford man, as was James Franco, who read Steinbeck's work in his younger days and made a personal connection with the author who incidentally died 10 years before Franco was born.In the movie, also directed by him, James Franco is activist Mac. We don't learn much about his backstory but he appears to be sympathetic to the cause of migrant workers and ultimately gives up his life for their causes. As the script at the end of the movie tells us, in the 1930s there were perhaps 2000 strikes, most of them ineffective, but ultimately led to recognition of workers' rights to organize and eventually laws regarding minimum wages.The core point in this movie is migrant workers were lured to pick apples in the valley at a promised wage of $3 per day, not much but in the Great Depression a livable wage. When they arrived, essentially broke, the owners would tell them that unfortunately they could only pay $1 per day, take it or leave it.Mac convinces them ultimately to stand up for their rights, to strike until they received a fair wage. Even though the movie is well under 2 hours it seems long because most of it moves slowly and we intuit where it is going ... several clashes between the migrant workers, the orchard owners, and local lawmen who don't want the trouble in their community. There are beatings and shootings, houses and barns burned down in the middle of the night. So in all it isn't a pleasant movie to watch but it depicts an important chapter in American history.

I've seen that James Franco is in at least one movie in theaters every week.For the most part he places himself in the movie so that the movie would get more promotion like a theatrical release (Or so I believe).This time was different as he directed and stared in this playing a major role as a unionizer, or rather the processor to this in 1933, which seems to be a Cold-hearted con man who just wants to make all workers get a fair shake. Plus the movie has a pretty big name cast with Vincent D'Onofrio Robert Duvall Bryan Cranston with a small role and Selma Gomez of all people trying to put some substance on her resume.Plus Franco did a good job at directing himself.It's a small movie with a very big cast, about a great story that still registers with people today.http://cinemagardens.com