Hey folks, Harry here - Films like this tend to resonate with you, or they don't - and if it doesn't ring true, you'll sit there wishing you were elsewhere. Here, it seems the film is good enough for this particular review to recommend over the sufferably fun experience of FINAL DESTINATION - which is as cookie cutter as you'd think. But that's not really saying that much, but enough of me, you came to hear from The Dum Guy, not the dumb guy...
To whomever cares, I’m not sure where to begin, so I’ll just sum everything up by saying that this film is perfectly inoffensive, no bad acting, decent directing and… that’s about it. The Open Road is a movie to watch and then forget about ever seeing it, it doesn’t have any complicating plots points, it doesn’t do anything to piss off the audience, but it also doesn’t do much other than go from point A to point B and so on. The plot per IMDB is simply, “Movie centers on the adult son of a baseball legend who, together with his girlfriend, embarks on a road trip with his estranged father.” The son is Justin “I bang Jessica Biel” Timberlake and the father is Jeff “The Dude” Bridges, and the “girlfriend” is some girl who isn’t famous. The film starts out with JT finding out his mother, played by Mary Steenburgen, is going to have to have an operation and she wants to see Bridges before she goes under the knife. That sets up Timberlake going to Ohio in order to tell his father and to get him to travel to Texas, while traveling with his ex-girlfriend (or is she?). The road trip aspect comes from the fact that Bridges loses his wallet (or does he?) at the airport and Homeland Security (the bastards!) won’t let him board the plane. What ensues afterward is pretty much a run of the mill drama/road-trip movie. And I mean run of the mill, do you expect a fight or two to happen? Do wonder if… actually I didn’t wonder about anything, I pretty much expected what to expect, the movie is pretty bland and straight forward, but it isn’t exactly bad, just ho-hum. Bridges is good as an estranged asshole of a father and husband. Timberlake isn’t terrible playing the son who is trying to reconnect with is estranged father and ex-girlfriend, all at the same time. The supporting cast is fine, I think Lyle Lovett showed up for two minutes playing a bartender, and I could have sworn that I saw Ted Danson at one point. The only really odd part of the film for me (and 99.9% of movie goers won’t care about) was a scene where father and son get into an argument at a railroad crossing that is supposed to be somewhere in Tennessee outside of Memphis. A few of the rail cars that pass by has a huge sign on it that says “Port”, which made wonder for a second what port city is in Tennessee? All in all it is just a forgettable little movie (I think this thing is playing in less than half a dozen cinemas nation wide) that is better than most of the crap that came out last week, so I’ll say if you want to see this or The Final Destination, I think the choice is obvious. I’m always bad with good byes, The Dum Guy
