The film had much going for it.  Viggo Mortensen is a fantastic and interesting actor.  It’s based on a Pulitzer prize winning book by Cormac McCarthy.  It was adapted by Joe Penhall.  And it was directed by the solid Aussie director John Hillcoat.  So where did all of this go slightly wrong?  I don’t know.

The film follows a father and son who remain unnamed, just as they did in the book.  An unidentified catastrophic disaster has killed most of the world’s population, and thrust the earth into, what seems to be, a nuclear winter.  Although the film is fraught with flashbacks, the actual time is about seven years after the major incident.  The father and son are traveling south, with hopes of finding something promising at the sea.

Mortensen plays the father with all the skill he holds, which is considerable.  The portrait he paints of a dying man, in a dying world, hoping to be able to protect his son until the very last possible moment is nothing short of heart wrenching.  The son, played by Kodi Smit-McPhee is also fantastic (although every trailer made promised he couldn’t act).  The cinematography is splendid.  Bleak, but so fully encompassing, one can’t help but be sucked into this dead, and mysterious world.

As in the book, the post-apocalyptic world is populated by those who have resulted to cannibalism to survive.  The father is constantly telling the son to seek out ‘the good guys’ and avoid ‘the bad guys.’  He tells the boy that they are carrying the fire, and need to find others that are carrying it too.  It’s these semi-sentimental moments that will both endear you, and horrify you as they seem so real and possible.

Unfortunately, there are a few things working against The Road.  And generally, they seem to be things that, while The Weinsteins shelved the release, were added after production had been completed.  Charlize Theron plays the mother of the son.  A mother who opted to commit suicide instead of face such a bleak world.  She fought to take her son with her, but the father objected.  While the mother makes a brief appearance in the book, she is virtually unimportant.  The film, apparently in an attempt to make the subject lighter, features several flashbacks, providing Ms. Theron with more screen time, as well as some scenes that features smiles, laughter, and colors out side of the spectrum of gray, and more gray.  A voice over was added, featuring some of the father’s more intimate thoughts concerning the boy, which detract from the mood and flow of the film.

I had the opportunity to read the original version of the shooting script long before the film was released.  And if (and I’m not sure who to blame here), they had just stuck to that script, the film would have been much better off.  It was a much closer adaptation of book.  The book worked so well because of its singular focus of a simple relationship between a father and son, in a very complicated world.  The film spent more time focusing on ensuing cannibals (which, I’ll admit, did lend itself to some very effective, and genuinely terrifying moments), than it did contemplating the basic nature of humanity which is at the very root of this story.

While The Road is truely a good film, it could have been fantastic.  Or a masterpiece.  However, it fails to break any boundaries or usual art house expectations.

My sister at The Bluestockings Society, and coincidentally the best book critic I know, has just reviewed the book, The Road by Cormac McCarthy.  Her full review can be found here.

3.5 out of 4 stars

‘Road’ may not be done in time for ‘08

Execs to meet Thursday to discuss film’s release

By Steven Zeitchik

Oct 15, 2008, 10:50 PM ET

Nick Cave wrote this script in under three weeks.  He also wrote the original score that accompanies the film (don’t worry, it’s not the hokey music heard on the trailer).  The score, like the script, is haunting, and provocative.  Hillcoat is unflinching, and solid in his direction.  The material he broaches in Proposition is dark, and savage, and he’s not afraid of those things.

‘Australia…what fresh hell is this?’

The story follows Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce), an Australian ‘bushranger’ (outlaw) as he’s confronted with a horrible ultimatum: kill his older brother to save his younger.  All three Burns boys are outlaws, varying in degrees of inhumanity.  The man that put him up to this proposition is Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone). Stanley is charged by his superiors to civilize this 19th century Australia, full of outlaws, murderers and rapists.  He takes the law into his own hands, giving Charlie nine days to hunt down and kill Arthur (Danny Huston), the worst of the bunch, or Mikey, the youngest will be sent to the gallows on Christmas day. While Stanley intends to keep his word on releasing Mikey if Charlie does the deed, matters become complicated when Stanley’s wife (Emma Watson) finds out the Burns brothers are responsible for the rape and murder of one of her good friends who was pregnant at the time.  She, and the public, cry out for justice, tearing Stanley between his loyalties.

The cinematography is stunning.  Hillcoat has a knack of showing the severity of mother nature, and showing mankind’s struggle within her midst.  I’ve never seen the Austalian landscape look more bleak.  The film is fraught with brutality and violence.  All the while, Hillcoat is unapologetic for his matter-of-fact portrayal of the wild west-ish world (the final climax is one of the most provocative scenes in my recent memory).  The narrative is strong, the acting is stronger, and as long as you don’t expect anything sugarcoated, you will thoroughly enjoy this.  It seems Hillcoat was the perfect choice to direct the upcoming film The Road.

4 out of 4 stars

Rottentomatoes: 86% – Cream of the Crop: 90%

Rated R for strong grisly violence, and for language.