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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: The Road

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#1 of 1 Posted Oct-12 7:15 PM

From harveykarten Posts 798 Last Feb-7
To All [Msg # 23978.1 ]

THE ROAD

Dimension Films
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey Karten
Grade: B
Directed by: John Hillcoat
Written By: Joe Penhall, from Cormac McCarthy’s novel
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Molly Parker, Michael K. Williams, Garret Dillahunt
Screened at: Broadway, NYC, 11/5/09
Opens: November 25, 2009

Here’s a film that could have been used by Al Gore as a sequel to Davis Guggenheim’s “An Inconsiderate Truth.” Gore and his large body of environmentally-conscious followers have warned us years before it became fashionable that we’re at the edge of the precipice—that global warming would result in the end of civilization as we know it unless we act now. In director John Hillcoat and scripter Joe Penhall apocalyptic vision, this could be humankind’s fate if the world came to an end—though, basing their vision on a novel by Cormac McCarthy (“No Country For Old Men”), we never find out just how the planet wound up without only a handful of survivors. Nor does that matter—whether the end was by a comet’s crashing into Louisiana or a tsunami from Antarctica or nuclear war courtesy of Mr. Imineedofjihad.

One wonders about the timing of the grim picture’s opening, one day before Thanksgiving, a downer that could presumably make us even more thankful that we in the U.S. have so much food ‘n’ stuff while the denizens of apocalypse have opted for minimalist fashion.

This is not a film for people who insist that “movies must move,” because there are no car chases (no cars exist), there are no explosions (there may have been at one time but there’s no-one around to make one), and lovers of sharp, witty dialogue will be disappointed (there’s narration but only a modicum of conversation—and what there is does not come replete with irony or paradox or wordplay).

For those who appreciate some fine acting, especially by a gifted 11-year-old, though, this is the road to take.

In this year’s most pessimistic movie to date, The Man, aka Papa (Viggo Mortensen) has lots of time to bond with his son, known as The Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee). All eleven years, in fact, since the lad’s mom, known as Wife (Charlize Theron) has given birth to him after the world as we know it had ended. Believing that suicide is better than starving or being eaten by cannibals, she goes outside. We hear from her again only in her husband’s daydreams. Things were better in those days. As father and son trudge about looking for food, wearing the anti-Brooks Brothers outfit against the freezing weather, they trust nobody, a good outlook since a half dozen some hungry men (in the most graphic scene) have imprisoned a family in their home, a writhing group of barely-living victims missing limbs—since the cannibalistic opportunists want to keep their meat fresh and alive.

That graphic scene could well have been the center of a true horror film, but director Hillcoat stresses the sci-fi aspect, appealing to those in the audience who eat up a story about a dad whose dependent son is anything but rebellious, possessing no I-pod or BlackBerry to compete with dad’s attention. The soul of the movie is the bond the two have forged, one destined to end in heartbreak.

Viggo Mortensen is reliable as ever, this time as a bearded, filthy survivor protecting his boy and himself from the bad guys while instructing his son that the world now, as ever, is divided between good guys and bad guys. We don’t wonder about this duality when the lad questions an approaching male: “Are you a good guy?” Kodi Smit-McPhee, allegedly chosen from hundreds of cast interviews, depicts innocence as directed, a 13-year-old Australian whose most recognizable role was as Raimond in Richard Roxburgh’s “Romulus, My Father”—also about a bond between father and son. See if you can recognize Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce!

Rated R. 112 minutes. © 2009 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online

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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: The Road

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