The Long and Winding Road...

The Road - John Hillcoat

Over the vast amount of films I’ve reviewed so far, the amount of blockbuster hits, the number of small indie flicks that blew me away to the pile of shit films that fill the gap in-between the good ones, The Road was a hard one to pinpoint before i finally sat down to watch it. And coming away from it, sadly it falls into the category of being a film that I’m just not interested in, it didn’t excite me, it didn’t entertain me. I know what it was trying to do, it was trying to encourage emotion the audience, show them a realistic storyline where they understand the realness of a situation of the world ending and civilisation collapsing and how hard it really would be. There have been a massive explosion of films recently showing a post apocalyptic world like The Book of Eli, 2012, Legion to a certain extent, and all of them give a take on how the average man or woman would cope. It’s becoming very boring now and the formula seems to be the same where the strong man takes control and looks after a family, a woman or a child.

The plot follows a father played by the awesome actor Viggo Mortensen, who i have much appreciation for, and in this film, he does play a heart breaking performance and it’s great, but it’s just a shame it’s a boringly paced film. I come to see something that entertains, that sits me down for an hour and a half or longer and takes me into a new world, shows me things I’ve never seen and just dream almost. Well that’s my view on cinema, it’s a form of entertainment, like a television show, or an album or theatre, and I want to be happy afterwards, I want to feel fulfilled. Anyway back to the film, a father played by Mortensen and a his boy played by the up and coming child actor Kodi Smit-McPhee who you’ll be seeing in the next massive film Let Me In, the remake of the fantastic Swedish film Let The Right One In, and how they survive in a world where shits gone down, and most people are dead, towns are deserted, houses destroyed, people turning into cannibals, it’s horrible. And through the use of flashback, the story of the family, where the mother kills herself and the two must survive no food or water, and how the little things matter. Throw in some runnings with some evil characters, some funny parts and some pretty dramatic sad parts, it’s very slowly paced.

So overall, a pretty boring film, i can’t write much more about a film i had no interest in and that I’m sure you’ll find the same unless you find it all attractive and like the fact it’s all doom and gloom. True the cinematography is good, the setting is doom-y and lovely and stuff, but it just doesn’t cut it for me.

4/10

Simon Childs