.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

In John Hillcoat's film of the Cormac McCarthy best seller, The Road, we are thrust into post-apocalyptic America where the land has been scorched, all animal and plant life are extinct and the human population is in the thousands.

It is here we meet a father and a son played by Viggo Mortensen and Kodi-Smit McPhee. They are dirty and hungry and are pushing their possession filled grocery cart south in hopes of finding a better life.

Their journey is as treacherous as it is depressing. Mankind has resorted to cannibalism to combat their longing hunger. Men hunt in packs and no one can be trusted. Along their trek, the father and son (not given names in the film) will meet a variety of characters from a gang of hunters that keep people trapped in a room under the floor for food, to an old man (Robert Duvall) who has lost everything and is just travelling without direction, to a black man who steals their gear only to be caught and punished for his attempt at survival.

Each encounter and every scene in The Road is depressing. Without a hint of color (all greys and dull hues), the film simply tracks the two leads as they continue to bond and confront their hunger and the obstacles in their paths. They are mostly alone in a world that is both miserable and discouraging. With but a pistol and two remaining bullets, they walk hundreds of miles in search of the unknown.

There are a few flashbacks to happier times. The father continues to dream about his life before the journey began with his wife (Charlize Theron) and son. Only in these dream sequences do we see reds, yellows and greens and are witness to a world so different and taken for granted.

The Road is a film that doesn't offer a whole lot to the viewing audience. The dialogue is pared down to a father speaking to a young boy and the conversations usually surround food or how to survive once 'papa' is gone. As an audience, you don't really get to witness any of the real atrocities that are described in the narrative. People are eaten, but it is not something you see on screen and the few deaths in the movie probably had more effect on McCarthy's written page than on the big screen.

By the time the movie gets to its anti-climatic end chapters, you have taken a two hour journey with two characters without really having to got to know them or to appreciate their struggle in earnest. And when there is a death of a major character, the journey you took with them isn't enough to pull on the heartstrings.

The Road was set to be released in 2008 and was pushed back to 2009. In both that year and now, there were/are expectations for Oscars in the forecast. But aside from some stunning visuals that eventually get lost in the gloom of the overall backdrop, The Road failed to inspire anything more than a long nap.