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Go Further (2003)
Directed by Ron Mann
Written by Solomon Vesta
Stars: Woody Harrelson, Jessica Chung, Steve Clark, Sonia Farrell
Genre: Documentary / Environmental Awareness / Road Trip / Pacific Northwest
Content: Unrated; Easy going laid-back vibes, man; brief hippy-type nature worship nudity; disturbing images of clear-cut forests

Go Further
A thousand-mile bike ride to peddle sustainability

"Go Further," a travelogue/environmental odyssey down the Pacific Coast, is almost too laid back for its own good.

Then again, that's sort of the point of it all: reduce stress, experience life, find out what's around the next bend when you get to that bend.

Documenting actor Woody Harrelson's 2001 environmentally friendly tour along 1,000-plus miles of the U.S. coastline, the film unfolds with an agenda so low key that it at times seems to forget what set Woody and his friends out on the journey in the first place.

Traveling mostly by bicycle, with a biodiesel powered bus trailing in support, Woody and his band of "Merry Hempsters" encounter a series of adventures both interesting and not. The Hempsters consist of a a yoga-teacher, a raw food chef, a hemp-activist, and a self-professed junk-food addict, Steve Clark, who takes over the role of chief convert and jester. Along the way, they pick up an English exchange student at one of Woody's university stops who joins the Hempsters for part of the journey.

How you will enjoy the film, I think, depends entirely on, like, where your head is at, man. The film does seem to meander mercilessly at times. Watching the film while simultaneously trying to meet Entertainer deadlines, I was in a much more goal-oriented frame of mind. I could have used a lot less of Clark's "Whoa, Dude!" tomfoolery and more of the people the group meets on the way who were finding pragmatic ways to put the good vibes to use: A woman selling hemp paper to businesses; a man with plans to feed the world's growing pile of garbage to worms, who in return supply a rich source of natural fertilizer; another man working on ways of generating energy through sustainable, small-scale solutions — every house its own solar powered entity.

One plus of the approach that "Go Further" takes is that, considering how passionate we know Harrelson is, the film keeps stridency to a minimum. As he says late in the film, Harrelson sees the solution to the problems he talks about as a "one person at a time" venture. His goal is not to change the world, just one person, if possible, and more if he can. His lectures in the film are, for the most part, thoughtful and reasoned, with a minimum of berating. He — and to a lesser extent, the film — tries to get the message across by living example; but I think the movie is much less focused than Harrelson is. With steady resolve, Harrelson peddles his bike, exuding a sense of calm that the others in the group find it easy to rally around. However, it would be a mistake to assume that behind that calm is a lack of a clear agenda.

I think the film could have borrowed more of Harrelson's goal-oriented but laid back energy, and spent a little less on Clark and the baffling bypaths to nowhere. But your bio-fueled diesel mileage may vary.