The Road (2009) Movie Review, Trailer, Film Still and Poster

USA 2009
Director: John Hillcoat
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael K. Williams, Robert Duvall, Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce
Rating: R
Release Date: November 25th 2009
Running Time: 1 hour 51 minutes

The Movie Review

The Road film still 1


THE ROAD
Storyline:
Cast:
Ending:
Overall:

There are a lot of movies lately depicting how the end of the world is gonna be. They came in various sizes, tastes, and of course quality. And when Roland Emmerich's movie 2012 created an end-of-the-world hysteria, the shelves on video store are choked with many movies with the word/number 2012 on their title. But actually a few months before 2012 went worldwide, a great movie depicting the aftermath of armageddon ('kiamat' in Indonesia) was released. An award-winning-material that may just satisfy your end-of-civilization-crave, a movie seriously produced that it even stars big names such as Viggo Mortensen, Robert Duvall and Charlize Theron.

A Man (the character's intentionally unnamed) (Viggo Mortensen) used to have a normal life living in a beautiful house with his pregnant wife (Charlize Theron) as depicted in the first few seconds in the beginning. But a humongous form of cataclysm turned everything into dust making the current civilization a history of the past. The scene than shifts with The Man is roaming the empty world with his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) carrying supermarket cart, believing that South is a better place for both of them. It's not going to be a smooth journey, with all the obstacles of hunger, cannibalistic men and the total nothingness all around them. Could they make it to the south?

The Road is a sci-fi film based on novel in 2006 written by Cormac McCarthy. It's directed by relatively new director but who has been collected since his first movie. The Road has a very slow pacing, which I believe it's meant to be that slow. This science fiction movie has a very somber tone, it's meant to give you the feeling of emptiness, of sorrow and desperation. Everywhere around you are dead, the community is dead, the trees are dead, all animals have extinct and society is history. A barren world with the dominant colours are of debris and ruins colour range, brown, black and grey. The Road is also a very serious movie, it's totally different with other post-apocalyptic zombie movies. The problems are highly possible, cannibalistic in the name of hunger, with the strong trying to survive and trying to keep their sanity and the weak choose to end their life. Yep a very sorrowful movie. And Viggo pairing with Charlize is just dead-on for this type of movie. But the truth is, the very slow pacing could eventually make you bore. Like I said before, The Road is more like movie festival material such as Oscar or Golden Globe and it's not popcorn material. But I'll say hang in there, there are many deep-thinking moments to be found with question that tickles your humanitarian bone. And in the end, the movie will leave you thinking, what a completely sorrow world they're living, what if it happens to us, no laws, no cops, no school, no duties but also no everything and no future. What would you do?

>More of Viggo's award-material movies: A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007) and Appaloosa (2009).