The Big Year (2012)

There are several things that I really liked about this movie, which features Owen Wilson, Jack Black, and Steve Martin as serious bird watchers.  But first, the plot.
As the story begins, the three guys are strangers setting out on a quest to be the year's top birder. Referred to by fellow birders as going for "the big year," it's a contest of who spots the most species of birds in North America in a single year. There's no prize money, it's run on an honor system and you are supposed to deny that you are going for a big year. Some sort of birding etiquette.

The guys are in varying stages of modern adult-male meltdowns, which means they've come to the party with flannel shirts, binoculars, birding notebooks and something to prove. Black plays Brad Harris, a  financially strapped computer programmer, divorced, and a genius at identifying bird calls. Martin is Stu Preissler, a captain of industry at the top of his game, now looking to retire and give in to his weekend birding obsession. Wilson is Kenny Bostick, the reigning birder with a record 732 sightings in one year but fearful that someone else might overtake him.
The scene is set.  While they are not above trying to trip each other up, it is not at a level of nastiness that even approaches stuff we see in every day life--especially now that we are in the middle of a venal political campaign where the truth is of no value.  So it doesn't get ugly, even though they are not all chummy about it.
And it might be a bit on the dull side if you have any idea what the world of birding is all about--I have no idea if the 'fall out' from a tropical storm in the middle of bird migration is likely to yield an unusual number of bird species sightings--but I do know that Attu Island in the Aleutian chain is a real phenomenon for birders working on their life list.
There were two high points for me--one was that all three men are faced with relationship choices during their big year--they need to decide what is important to them, and in two of the three cases they make the right decision.  it was like holding a mirror up to an obsession and asking just how far are you willing to go, and one of them failed the test (though he won the contest).  The other is that there is a subtext that birds are cool and important, and as we are a country in the midst of fracking up entire swaths of the country with little to no regard for the environmental consequences, to be reminded of that is a good thing.