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2009 Agnes Herrmann Bob Jennings Brenna Roth Buddy Sosthand Charlize Theron Chaz Moneypenny Cormac McCarthy David August Lindauer Erik Hodge Garret Dillahunt Gina Preciado Guy Pearce Jack Erdie Jarrod DiGiorgi Jeremy Ambler Joe Penhall John Hillcoat Kacey Byrne-Houser Kirk Brown Kodi Smit-McPhee Marc Butan Mark Cuban Mark Tierno Mary Rawson Michael K Williams Molly Parker Nick Cave Nick Wechsler Paula Mae Schwartz Robert Duvall Rudd Simmons Steve Schwartz Todd Wagner Viggo Mortensen Warren Ellis
First Review:"The Road" is a powerful movie about the love of a man for his son. Viggo Mortensen's character is a simple man who shows unconditional affection for the boy he has vowed to protect. This emotional core is what sustains the film through times of absolute despair. The physical landscape is like a roadmap of purgatory: bridges have collapsed, mushrooms of smoke billow into the sky, earthquakes cleave fissures in the ground so trees snap and fall like matchsticks, and raging orange infernos consume woodlands, as if a glimpse of Hell is just beyond the horizon. Everything is grey and bleached of color, seen through a skein of ash. At times it seems as if you're watching black and white documentary footage; that's how stark and grainy this world is. All vibrancy and beauty have been scorched away by an apocalyptic cataclysm of global proportions.
The world has been stripped of all joy, like a corpse gnawed to the bone by rot. The only pleasure that remains is finding a hidden stash of food or the simple comfort of human contact. Hope is largely absent, so it must be manufactured.
The movie is permeated with doom. Never have I witnessed a story so bleak, and yet the dread is palpable. One cringes when the boy sits on a chair swing and it creaks, potentially drawing the attention of cannibals who lurk on the periphery like brutal phantoms to plunder survivors of their innocence. Viggo Mortensen is a coiled spring of single-minded determination: save the boy at all costs. This survivalist mentality has made him paranoid, which is realistic in a world where people have been reduced to predators. All he wants is to secure food, warmth, and shelter for his charge. The unforgiving landscape challenges him at every juncture.
The boy (Kodi McPhee) is in a state of fearful vigilance. His youth has allowed him to retain a strong sense of right and wrong in a world that has been leached of morals. He hasn't grown jaded yet, and doesn't want to. His generosity and kindness are probably what keep his father from descending into a vengeful, feral torpor. The boy is his conscience, reminding him of when people were civil with one another. It is a performance of amazing potency: several scenes are stunning in Kodi's ability to convey raw emotion. Even though acts of cruelty are commonplace, the boy fights for decency, making him instantly sympathetic. A part where the boy is stunned by a gunshot and goes catatonic while his father hauls him away and picks brain matter out of his hair is rendingly powerful.
The movie raises difficult questions. Would it be more noble to commit suicide than to succumb to the clutches of a stranger? Is trudging down a desolate road toward the unknown a better alternative than staying in one place? If one wants to survive at all costs, is it mandatory to become as grim and cruel as your surroundings? Or is showing compassion what ultimately separates humans from animals?
Category: Adventure
All Genres: Adventure, Drama, Thriler
Release Year: 2009
Country: USA
Runtime: 112 minutes
Rating: 7.8 /10
Languages: English
Director:
Sound: Dolby Digital, SDDS, DTS
Writing by :
Produced by:
Marc Butan
Mark Cuban
Erik Hodge
Paula Mae Schwartz
Steve Schwartz
Rudd Simmons
Todd Wagner
Nick Wechsler
Music By:
Cast:
Viggo Mortensen - Man
Kodi Smit-McPhee - Boy
Robert Duvall - Old Man
Guy Pearce - Veteran
Molly Parker - Motherly Woman
Michael K. Williams - The Thief (as Michael Kenneth Williams)
Garret Dillahunt - Gang Member
Charlize Theron - Woman
Bob Jennings - Bearded Man
Agnes Herrmann - Archer's Woman
Buddy Sosthand - Archer
Kirk Brown - Bearded Face
Jack Erdie - Bearded Man #2
David August Lindauer - Man On Mattress
Gina Preciado - Well Fed Woman
Mary Rawson - Well Fed Woman #2
Jeremy Ambler - Man In Cellar #1
Chaz Moneypenny - Man In Cellar #2
Kacey Byrne-Houser - Woman In Cellar #2
Brenna Roth - Road Gang Member
Jarrod DiGiorgi - Well Fed Man
Mark Tierno - Baby Eater
Official Website: Visit Website
Plot: The Road follows an unnamed father and son journeying together toward the sea across a post-apocalyptic landscape, some years after a great, unexplained cataclysm has destroyed civilization and almost all life on Earth. The setting is extremely bleak; the sun is obscured by a layer of ash so thick that the pair must breathe through masks, and plants do not grow. The surviving remnants of humanity have been largely reduced to thoughtless violence and cannibalism. Realizing that they will not survive another winter in their present location, the father leads them through this desolate landscape towards the sea, sustained by a vague hope of finding other "good people" like them.
Overwhelmed by this desperate and apparently hopeless situation, the boy's mother, pregnant with him at the time of the cataclysm, has committed suicide some time before the story begins. The father coughs blood every morning and knows he is dying. He struggles to protect his son from the constant threats of attack, exposure, and starvation, as well as from what he sees as the boy's innocently well-meaning but dangerous desire to help the other wanderers they meet. They carry a pistol with two bullets, meant for protection or suicide if necessary. In the face of all of these obstacles, the man and the boy have only each other (they are "each the other's world entire"). The man maintains the pretense, and the boy holds on to the real faith, that there is a core of ethics left somewhere in humanity. They repeatedly assure one another that they are "the good guys", who are "carrying the fire".
On their journey the duo scrounge for food, encounter roving bands of cannibals, and contend with casual horrors such as a baby roasting on a spit and people being kept alive as their limbs are slowly harvested for food. In the end, having brought the boy south after extreme hardship but without finding the salvation he had hoped for, the father succumbs to his illness and dies, leaving the boy alone on the road. Three days later, however, the grieving boy encounters a man who has been tracking the father and son; this man, who has a wife and two children of his own, brings the boy to join his family. One of the children is a girl, implying the possibility of a future for the human race, despite the grim conditions. A brief epilogue meditates on nature and infinity in this altered environment.
Goofs:
Trivia:
- 6 Videos: The Road
- Break Videos: The Road - Movie Trailer HD
- DailyMotion: Viggo Mortenson * The Road * Charlize Theron
- Google video: The Road
- Ku 6 Video: The Road
- Metacafe: THE ROAD: Movie Trailer
- Tribute.ca : Viggo Mortensen & Kodi Smit-McPhee Interview
- Tudou: The Road search
- Yahoo Video: The Road - Movie Trailer HD
- Youku: The Road Search
- YouTube: The Road Official Movie Trailer
